Property owners all over the country are required to keep their property reasonably safe for others. The law says that property owners need to be aware of dangerous conditions and then either tell guests about them or fix them. A recent case in Stanislaus County has brought up some interesting questions when a person is injured in a batting cage. As this is a notoriously dangerous place, how far does the owner have to go to protect those on their property?
The facts of the case
The case we’re discussing today involves a man named Craig, who was 23 years old and the couch of a baseball team. One day in 2016, he was getting ready to leave the batting cages when a parent stopped to talk to him. Craig stopped as well, on a walkway between two batting areas, and a foul ball ended up getting through the protective netting and hitting in in the groin.
Craig had a fractured testicle, required several surgeries, and was in extreme pain. As a result, he filed a premises liability lawsuit in which he named the owner of the facility for their negligence in not repairing or replacing the netting that allowed the ball to hit him.
The plaintiff’s perspective
The plaintiff says that the netting was installed in 2012 and that there was no inspection schedule in place to inspect the netting. There was no evidence of repairs. The plaintiff further said that the defendant had new netting but had not installed it. There was no signage that the area was damaged and both sides agreed that the ball did indeed go through the netting. The final argument was that the defendant should have installed double netting and or not had a walkway between the two batting lanes.
The defendant’s perspective
The defendant of course sees the case differently. His legal team argued that it’s simply common knowledge that a person shouldn’t use the walkway during active batting practice. They also argued that the plaintiff in particular had many years of experience with baseball and should have known better. They claim he was 100% responsible for the accident.
The results of the case
This was an eight-day trial that ended with less than two hours of jury deliberation. They found that the defendant was 100% at fault and awarded $600,000 to the plaintiff. This included $18,000 in past economic damages, $104,000 in future economic damages, $100,000 in non-economic damages, and more than $375,000 in future non-economic damages.
If you’ve been injured as the result of someone else acting negligently or recklessly then you may have grounds for a personal injury case. The first step is to contact Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas at 909-982-0707 for a free legal consultation. We can listen to your side of the story, gather information, and provide you with our legal opinion about how you can proceed. Don’t wait – there is a statute of limitations on personal injury lawsuits – contact us today.
