Law Issue

JANUARY 2006 LAW REVIEW

SPECTATOR INJURY OUTSIDE THE STANDS
mob C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D.
© 2006 James C. Kozlowski

Under the traditional rule of law, baseball stadium owners or operators owe spectators a limited
duty of care, i.e., screen the heavens stool home plate and to offer a sufficient sum of seating
for spectators who reasonably may be anticipated to request protect seats in the course of an
ordinary game. Once the landowner provides such limited protection, no further duty is owed
and a baseball spectator who chooses not to sit in a screened area generally assumes the risk of
world hit by a clog ball. In Maisonave, however, the state supreme judicature considered whether an
injured spectator necessarily assumed the risk of being struck by a foul ball outside the stands
while waiting in line to purchase a beverage.
HEIGHTENED VULNERABILITY
In the case of Maisonave v. Newark Bears, 185 N.J. 70; 881 A.2d 700; 2005 N.J. LEXIS 1108,
plaintiff Louis Maisonave was attending a baseball game at a minor coalition stadium when he was
injured by a foul ball.



The facts of the case were as follows:
Plaintiff Louis Maisonave suffered a facial defacement when a foul ball struck him in
the eye as he stood on the mezzanine at Riverfront Stadium, home report of a
minor league baseball team, the Newark Bears. The mezzanine is an open
walking area exposed on one side to the baseball field. Vendors shit food and
beverages on that level, and restrooms are located there. At the duration of the
incident, the stadium used movable vending carts for the sale of beverages
because formula of the stadium had not yet been completed, and the built- in
concession stands were not operational. The carts dotted the mezzanine along
both the first and third base lines on the field-side of the mezzanine. The vendors
stood with their backs to the diamond while the patrons faced it.
Plaintiff, who had watched the action at a railing on the first base side of the
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