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Rudolph v. Arizona B.A.S.S. Federation

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, Department A
182 Ariz. 622, 898 P.2d 1000 (1995)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

An organizer of a competitive event on a public waterway owes a duty of reasonable care to other non-participating users of that waterway to design and conduct the event in a manner that does not create an unreasonable risk of harm.


Facts:

  • Grand Canyon Bass Busters (GCBB), a fishing club, sponsored a bass fishing tournament at Bartlett Lake, a location some members considered congested with boat traffic.
  • GCBB obtained a U.S. Forest Service permit, signed by its president Richard Diaz, which required the club to ensure participants operated boats in a safe manner.
  • The tournament rules required all participants, who were fishing across the 2,700-acre lake, to return to a single weigh-in station by a 1:00 p.m. deadline to avoid penalties.
  • GCBB did not patrol the lake or provide specific safety instructions to participants, expecting them to police themselves.
  • On the day of the tournament, plaintiffs' daughter, Heather, who was not a participant, was riding a jet ski on Bartlett Lake.
  • At approximately 12:55 p.m., a tournament participant, James A. Kirkland, was operating his boat at over forty miles per hour towards the weigh-in station.
  • Kirkland's boat collided with Heather's jet ski, causing her death.
  • At the time of the collision, Kirkland's passenger had a fish in the boat that was of a size that had won prizes in previous GCBB tournaments.

Procedural Posture:

  • Plaintiffs filed a wrongful death action in a trial court against Kirkland, Grand Canyon Bass Busters (GCBB), and its president, Richard Diaz.
  • Defendants GCBB and Diaz filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing they owed no duty of care to the decedent, Heather.
  • The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, finding no special relationship and therefore no duty.
  • The trial court entered a final partial judgment dismissing the claims against GCBB and Diaz.
  • Plaintiffs (appellants) timely appealed the trial court's judgment to the intermediate appellate court.

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Issue:

Does a sponsor of a competitive event, such as a fishing tournament, owe a duty of reasonable care to other non-participating users of a public lake where the event is held?


Opinions:

Majority - Weisberg, J.

Yes. A sponsor of a competitive event on a public waterway owes a duty of reasonable care to other users of that waterway. The court rejected the argument that a special relationship is required to create a duty, instead taking a broad view of foreseeability. The court analogized users of a public lake to drivers on a public highway, where every user owes a duty of care to all other users. By organizing the tournament, GCBB became a 'user' of the lake and was therefore obligated to exercise due care in designing and conducting the tournament so as not to injure other users like Heather. Citing Weirum v. RKO General, Inc., the court reasoned it was foreseeable that the tournament's design—with its deadline and single weigh-in station—could encourage participants to operate their boats dangerously, creating a risk of harm to others. The specific details of the tournament's design relate to whether the duty was breached, not whether the duty existed in the first place.



Analysis:

This decision significantly broadens the scope of duty for organizers of competitive events held in public spaces. It moves away from requiring a direct relationship between the organizer and the injured party, focusing instead on the foreseeability of harm to a general class of people (e.g., other users of a lake or highway). The ruling establishes that an organizer's duty extends to designing an event whose rules do not implicitly or explicitly encourage participants to act recklessly. This precedent puts event sponsors on notice that they can be held liable for the foreseeable dangerous conduct of participants, even if they do not directly control that conduct.

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