Plaintiff, a Monitor in a Golf Program, Assumed the Risk of Injury in a Golf-Cart Accident

The First Department determined that defendant was entitled to summary judgment dismissing the complaint on the ground that plaintiff had assumed the risk of riding in a golf cart driven by defendant. Both plaintiff and defendant were participating in a golf program. Defendant, 17-year-old Andrew Jiminez, was driving a golf cart with plaintiff as a passenger when he allegedly made a “full speed” sharp turn, throwing plaintiff out of the cart. Reversing Supreme Court, the First Department held that plaintiff had assumed the risk of injury from defendant’s operation of the golf cart. The fact that plaintiff was not performing her golf-program duties at the time of the accident was deemed irrelevant:

A plaintiff who voluntarily participates in a sporting or recreational event generally is held to have consented to those commonly-appreciated risks that are inherent in, and arise out of, participation in the sport … . “It is not necessary to the application of assumption of risk 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” … . A nonparticipant may also be subject to a defense based on the doctrine of assumed risk … .

“[G]olfers …. must be held to a common appreciation of the fact that there is a risk of injury from improperly used carts on a fairway which is inherent in and aris[es] out of the nature of the sport generally and flow[s] from participation in it” … . Here, plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily rode in a golf cart operated by Jimenez, a 17 year old participant in the AGY program, on a golf course, during a golf tournament in which she was assigned to monitor a par-three hole for any player that got a hole in one. While plaintiff contends that she did not know that Jimenez was an unlicensed driver, she knew that he was a minor yet made no attempt to determine whether he had a license or whether he should be operating a golf cart.

The fact that plaintiff was not actively performing her duties of monitoring the hole at the time of her injury does not render the doctrine inapplicable. “[T]he assumption [of risk] doctrine applies to any facet of the activity inherent in it” … . The salient point is that the accident involved a sporting or recreational activity that “occurred in a designated athletic or recreational venue” … . Valverde v Great Expectations, LLC, 2015 NY Slip Op 06561, 1st Dept 8-18-15