SUMMARY JUDGMENT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF RISK DOCTRINE PROPERLY GRANTED TO THE SCHOOL IN THIS BASEBALL-RELATED SLIP AND FALL CASE (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department determined the assumption of the risk doctrine supported summary judgment in favor of the school. Plaintiff, a volunteer assisting the baseball coaching staff of his son’s team, slipped and fell on a tile covering a grate on the field while attempting to retrieve a ball. The baseball field is on school grounds:
According to the doctrine of primary assumption of the risk, “when an individual voluntarily participates in a sport or recreational activity, he or she consents to those commonly appreciated risks that are inherent in and arise out of the nature of the sport generally and flow from participation therein” … . “This encompasses risks associated with the construction of the playing field, and any open and obvious conditions on it”… . “If the risks are known by or perfectly obvious to the participant, he or she has consented to them and the property owner has discharged its duty of care by making the conditions as safe as they appear to be”… .. ” It is not necessary . . . that the injured plaintiff have foreseen the exact manner in which his or her injury occurred, so long as he or she is aware of the potential for injury of the mechanism from which the injury results'” … . Moreover, “[t]he participant’s awareness of risk is not to be determined in a vacuum. It is, rather, to be assessed against the background of the skill and experience of the particular plaintiff” … .
Here, the school defendants … established their prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. The plaintiff’s deposition testimony established that, on the date of his accident, he volunteered to assist the coaching staff at his son’s baseball practice. Not only had he visited this particular baseball field at least three prior times, he had also sat along the third-base foul line, which was close to the area where his accident occurred. The plaintiff had also served as an assistant baseball coach for his son’s baseball teams for five or six years. Although the plaintiff testified at his deposition that he had never observed the tile before slipping on it, the photographs that he took the day following his accident, which he contended accurately depicted the tile and the field the way they had looked on the day at issue, demonstrate that the approximately 12-inch by 12-inch white or creamish color tile, which contrasted starkly with the color of the grass, was an open and obvious condition. There was no evidence that the tile was defective … . Siegel v Albertus Magnus High Sch., 2017 NY Slip Op 05991, Second Depty 8-2-17
NEGLIGENCE (ASSUMPTION OF RISK, SUMMARY JUDGMENT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF RISK DOCTRINE PROPERLY GRANTED TO THE SCHOOL IN THIS BASEBALL-RELATED SLIP AND FALL CASE (SECOND DEPT))/EDUCATION-SCHOOL LAW (NEGLIGENCE, ASSUMPTION OF RISK, SUMMARY JUDGMENT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF RISK DOCTRINE PROPERLY GRANTED TO THE SCHOOL IN THIS BASEBALL-RELATED SLIP AND FALL CASE (SECOND DEPT))/ASSUMPTION OF RISK (BASEBALL, EDUCATION-SCHOOL LAW, SUMMARY JUDGMENT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF RISK DOCTRINE PROPERLY GRANTED TO THE SCHOOL IN THIS BASEBALL-RELATED SLIP AND FALL CASE (SECOND DEPT))/BASEBALL (EDUCATION-SCHOOL LAW, ASSUMPTION OF RISK, SUMMARY JUDGMENT BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION OF RISK DOCTRINE PROPERLY GRANTED TO THE SCHOOL IN THIS BASEBALL-RELATED SLIP AND FALL CASE (SECOND DEPT))