Act protects Coors Field owners from most lawsuits

Being the height of baseball season, and with the Rockies showing signs of a pulse, I thought I would tell you about the Colorado Baseball Spectator Safety Act. This law aimed at ticket buyers has been on the books since 1993 and, as you might expect, it’s not so much about spectator safety as it is about protecting owners of baseball stadiums from lawsuits.

In that vein, the act starts out with a nice little paragraph saying that, though attending baseball games involves a risk of injury, it is nonetheless a “wholesome and healthy family activity” that the General Assembly wants to encourage.

One way to do this, the act says, is to make “ticket prices more affordable.” And one way to make ticket prices more affordable is to limit the liability of those who own baseball stadiums. (In this paragraph, the General Assembly also notes that the state will derive economic benefit from people attending baseball games.)

The Baseball Spectator Safety Act is based on a concept that has long been present in personal injury law — assumption of risk. Under the doctrine of assumption of risk, people can’t sue for injuries they suffer that were known to be inherent in an activity in which they chose to participate.

To say this another way, you can’t sue if you’re injured in a predictable way doing something you knew was dangerous. What the Baseball Spectator Safety Act does is to make it clear that getting hit by balls and bats is a risk you know about and agree to take when you go to a baseball game.

The General Assembly did not, however, give owners of baseball stadiums a right to be totally careless. An owner of a stadium continues to be liable for injuries resulting from a failure to “make a reasonable and prudent effort to design, alter and maintain the premises of the stadium in a reasonably safe condition.”

So, there still needs to be a screen behind home plate and a safety railing in front of the upper decks.

The General Assembly also made it clear (even though this could be considered an inherent risk of baseball) that a spectator has the right to sue for injuries caused by a fellow spectator. So, for example, if you are assaulted by a fan who is offended by your comments about the intelligence of his team’s players, you can bring a lawsuit. The same principle would apply if the person behind you, in the course of consuming seven or eight malt beverages, falls on top of you and injures you.

To be sure spectators are aware of the risks inherent in watching a professional baseball game, the Baseball Spectator Safety Act requires stadium owners to place large signs at entrances to their facilities and where tickets are sold warning of these risks. These signs specifically mention the risk of being struck by a ball or a bat, and they inform people that, under the Act, they will have no right to recover for such an injury.

Similar assumption of risk statutes are in place covering activities involving equines (horses, mules, donkeys and hinnies) and llamas, and “agricultural recreational activities,” a term that includes hunting, shooting, swimming, diving, tubing, rodeo events and, yes, planting and harvesting crops.

Jim Flynn is a local attorney. Contact him c/o The Gazette, P.O. Box 1779, Colorado Springs 80901; fax 578-8836 or e-mail jtflynn325@hotmail.com. Not all questions can be answered.