Salevan v. Wilmington Park, Inc.
72 A.2d 239 (1950)
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Rule of Law:
A landowner who operates a place of amusement, such as a baseball park, adjacent to a public highway has an ongoing duty to exercise reasonable care to protect persons on the highway from projectiles leaving the property. This duty requires taking sufficient precautions, and if the landowner knows or should know that initial precautions are insufficient, they must implement further measures to prevent foreseeable harm.
Facts:
- The defendant owned and operated a commercial baseball park in Wilmington, which it had done for over eight years.
- The park's left-field foul line ran parallel to Thirtieth Street, with a fence separating the park from the sidewalk.
- A portion of this fence, beginning about 150 feet from home plate, was only 10 feet high.
- On the night of the incident, the plaintiff was walking on the public sidewalk along Thirtieth Street next to the park.
- While walking, the plaintiff was struck in the back by a fast-moving baseball that came over the 10-foot fence from inside the park.
- Testimony established that during an average game, 2 or 3 foul balls would travel over the 10-foot fence and land in the area where the plaintiff was walking.
- An average of 68 baseball games were played at the park each season.
Procedural Posture:
- The plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the defendant, the owner of the baseball park, in the Superior Court of Delaware, a trial court, seeking damages for personal injuries.
- The case was heard by a judge in a bench trial (without a jury).
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Issue:
Is a landowner who operates a baseball park liable for negligence when a pedestrian on an adjacent public street is injured by a baseball hit out of the park, if the landowner knew or should have known that baseballs frequently landed in that area?
Opinions:
Majority - Wolcott, Judge
Yes. A landowner is liable for negligence under these circumstances. The public has a right to the free and unmolested use of public highways, and landowners may not use their property in a way that interferes with this right. While playing baseball is not a nuisance per se, its inherent nature requires the landowner to take reasonable precautions to protect the traveling public. The court reasoned that the defendant knew, or should have known from the history of its park's operation, that baseballs frequently went over the 10-foot fence into the street, posing a danger to pedestrians. The fact that balls continued to exit the park proved that the initial precautions taken were insufficient. This constructive or actual knowledge of an ongoing danger created a duty for the defendant to implement more effective measures, and its failure to do so constituted negligence.
Analysis:
This decision establishes that a landowner's duty to provide 'reasonable precautions' is not a static obligation satisfied at the time of construction, but rather an ongoing duty informed by experience. The case shifts the focus from merely having safety measures (like a fence) to ensuring those measures are actually effective in preventing foreseeable harm. It solidifies the principle that notice, whether actual or constructive, of recurring dangerous incidents originating from one's property creates a heightened duty to rectify the situation to protect the public. Future cases involving similar landowner liability will likely look to the frequency and foreseeability of the harm to determine if the precautions taken were truly 'reasonable' under the circumstances.
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