Spectator Injuries: Examining Owner Negligence and the Assumption of Risk Defense
INTRODUCTION
People attend sporting events for various reasons. A person may attend for the love of the game, because friends or family persuaded the person to go, or to impress that special someone. However, injuries to spectators can affect anyone at or near the game. Spectators who lawfully purchase tickets to attend sporting events are business invitees and are be able to recover damages from stadium owners who “knew or should have known that a condition existed which posed an unreasonable risk to the spectators, the spectators could not have discovered and protected themselves against this risk, and he owners failed to exercise reasonable care for the spectator’s protection.”
The purpose of this article is to: (1) analyze the current duty of care owed by stadium owners to spectators in baseball and hockey; (2) identify when any assumption of risk defenses...