Premises Liability and Stadium Accidents

For sports lovers, California’s sports scene is where it’s at! With more than a dozen pro teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, San Francisco 49ers, and San Jose Sharks, you can take in a game nearly any time you’re in the mood. Iconic coaches, storied histories, legendary players, and passionate fans make the state a great place for the sports lover. It’s all fun and games… until somebody gets hurt.

And somebody’s bound to get hurt, given the large number of sporting events and sports fans, coupled with high energy and alcohol. Maybe you’ve slipped in the stadium bathroom on a spilled beer. Maybe you’ve been hit in the eye by a projectile thrown by an exuberant fan. Maybe you’ve gotten a burn when infield pyrotechnics went awry. 

Who is responsible for these kinds of personal injuries? It all comes down to premises liability.

What Is Premises Liability?

If you’re injured at Dodgers Stadium while watching your beloved baseball team play, the applicable legal theory is called “premises liability.” Premises liability is a legal action based on negligence. To prevail in your lawsuit, you must prove the following:

• The property owner (or lessor) owed you a duty of care.
• The property owner (or lessor) breached that duty.
• The breach was the cause of your damages.

In California, the property owner, lessor, or other person who controls the property is required to take “reasonable” care for the safety of people who are lawfully on their property. 

The court may consider the following elements in determining whether the owner, lessor, or occupier exercised reasonable care:

• Where the property is located
• The likelihood that the property will be visited or accessed
• The likelihood of injury due to obvious or hidden dangers
• The likelihood of serious harm
• The difficulty of protecting or defending against such harm

As someone who owns or controls property in California, you typically won’t be held liable for injuries sustained by trespassers on your property. However, there are several situations in which property owners may be liable for trespassers’ injuries in California:

• Attractive Nuisance – An attractive nuisance is something on the premises that may attract children, such as a body of water, a pool or a fountain, and that presents a danger of serious injury or death. Property owners must take extra precautions to prevent access to the attractive nuisance.
• Willful or Intentional Harm – Property owners may be liable for injuries suffered by trespassers if the property owner intentionally causes them harm. Examples include if a property owner exerts excessive force against a trespasser or endangers them by knowingly exposing them to hazards such as toxic chemicals.
• Failure to Warn of Known Dangers – When people trespass frequently on your property, you are expected to anticipate or expect such trespassing to occur. Therefore, you may be liable if a trespasser suffers harm while on the property, such as falling into an unmarked deep hole. 
• Dangerous Dog – For a property owner to be liable for a trespasser’s injury caused by a dangerous dog or animal bite, the property owner must have known or had reason to know that the dog or animal was dangerous and likely to cause harm.

An exception to this rule is that where a danger is “open and obvious,” a landowner owes no duties with respect to that danger. A danger is open and obvious when a person on the property can reasonably be expected to discover it and protect themselves against it. Some examples of “open and obvious” dangers include:  

• A tall planter on a store’s selling floor
• Uneven concrete in the parking lot 
• Brick borders around a tree in a private yard
• Disassembled store shelving in an area that was clearly being redesigned.
• A ladder on the selling floor of a store.

Is Negligence Involved?

Not every accident or injury is the result of negligence. As someone who has bought a ticket to watch the sporting event, you’re owed a duty of reasonable care. This requires the stadium owner to exercise the level of diligence that a “reasonable person” would exercise to learn about dangerous conditions and to abate them. 

So, for example, if you were texting and tripped and fell down a stairwell, breaking your leg while you were texting, it’s unlikely that the owner would be found negligent unless other pertinent facts were relevant. 

Similarly, if you had a slip and fall in a wet bathroom whose roof had only just sprung a leak, it’s possible the stadium owner did not breach a duty to you and was, therefore, not negligent. However, if the bathroom roof leaked every time it rained, and the owner’s maintenance personnel were aware or should have been aware of the problem, the owner might be deemed to be negligent. 

Contact a Santa Ana Personal Injury Attorney

If you believe you have been harmed in a sporting arena due to the negligence of the stadium owner, you may be entitled to compensation. Compensation can include your medical costs and lost wages, known as economic damages, and compensation for pain and suffering and other non-economic damages. In certain egregious cases, where the defendant has shown a “conscious disregard” for your safety, you may also be entitled to punitive damages to help deter this kind of conduct in the future. 

Note that you must bring a lawsuit within two years of the accident. This statute of limitations may be extended by the period of time it takes you to realize that you have been injured if the injury is not immediately obvious. In addition, the statute of limitations may be paused for minors or people with mental incapacity. A Santa Ana personal injury attorney will help you understand the timeline for your case. If you’ve suffered an injury at a sports venue and believe that it was due to the negligence of the arena owner or operator, contact the Law Offices of Benjamin Arsenian P.C. today for a free consultation.