Liability for Injury at a Stadium or Sports Facility

Most spectator injuries at stadiums and sports facilities involve what the law calls "premises liability" claims. Some dangerous condition—a slippery substance on the floor, a fast-moving foul ball, or an errant hockey puck, for example—causes an injury, often before the victim has a chance to realize what's going on and react.

When an injury like that happens, is anyone on the legal hook? Can you sue the owner of the team or the facility? Do fans assume the risk of harm and lose the right to sue for injuries? And what about that fine print on the back of your ticket with all the legal mumbo jumbo about no liability and releases? Is that binding?

We'll answer those questions and more.

It Starts With Negligence

To win compensation (called "damages") for an injury at a stadium or sports facility, you must prove that:

• the owner, operator, or a third party like a vendor was negligent, and
• their negligence caused your injury.

Negligence is just a fancy legal term for carelessness. Someone who isn't as careful as they should be is negligent. When negligence causes harm, you might be able to collect personal injury damages for your injuries.

The fact that you were injured at a sports facility does not, by itself, mean that anyone was negligent. Proving negligence requires you to show that:

• there was a dangerous condition at the facility
• the owner, operator, or a vendor knew or should have known about the dangerous condition, and
• they failed to take reasonable steps to fix the danger or warn spectators about it.

A Dangerous Condition

Most spectator injuries at sporting events happen because of slip and fall or trip and fall accidents. Someone spills a drink or drops a container of nachos on the ground, the mess doesn't get cleaned up, and a spectator slips and falls. These common dangers can (and do) happen anywhere.

But some dangers are unique to sports venues. You don't have to worry about a foul ball or a flying hockey puck at your favorite grocery store or movie theater.

The law refers to things like these—spilled items, errant balls, and hockey pucks—as "dangerous conditions," because that's what they are. All of them can cause serious, even life-threatening injuries to inattentive or unsuspecting fans.

Knowledge of the Danger

When you want to hold the stadium owner, operator, or a third-party vendor legally responsible for the dangerous condition that caused your injury, you have to prove that:

• they actually knew about the danger before you were hurt, or
• they had "constructive notice" of the danger before you were hurt, meaning that had they been reasonably careful and inspected the property, they would have discovered it, and
• they had enough time to remove the danger or warn you about it before you were hurt.

This knowledge requirement should make sense if you think about it. You can't expect someone to take care of a dangerous condition if they don't know about it.

More often than not, the party you're going after will deny having actually known about the danger. You'll need to prove that it was there for a long enough time that they should have discovered it, had they made a reasonable effort to inspect the place.

Failure to Fix or Warn

Once they have notice of a dangerous condition—actual or constructive—the stadium owner, operator, or a third party vendor usually must take reasonable steps to either:

• remove the danger, or
• if removing it isn't feasible under the circumstances, warn spectators about it.

Failure to take reasonable and timely steps to make the condition safe means the owner, operator, or third party was negligent. We'll talk in more detail below about the steps they might take.

Negligence in a Stadium Slip and Fall Case

Let's have a look at a couple of slip and fall scenarios to see how liability might play out.

The Snowy Playoff Game

Suppose you attended a January Buffalo Bills playoff football game at the team's outdoor stadium. The night before the game, several inches of snow fell on the entire Buffalo region. When the snow finally quit falling, there wasn't enough time to clear the accumulations from the stadium. Instead, stadium managers placed warning signs all over the premises.

While making your way to your seat, you slipped and fell on snow-covered steps, injuring your back. Do you have a viable slip and fall claim against the stadium's owner or operator? Almost certainly not. Why? Because they weren't negligent.

The accumulated snow counts as a dangerous condition. And everyone—including the stadium's owner and operator—surely knew about the danger.

But the snowstorm didn't stop in time to allow the accumulated snow to be removed, so they can't be negligent for not removing it. In lieu of removing the snow, stadium managers placed warning signs. On these facts, you'd find it exceptionally difficult to convince a court that you've got a slip and fall case.

But there's more. The snow was what's known as an "open and obvious" danger, meaning it was up to you to exercise due care for your own safety. By showing up at the stadium, you assumed the risk of an injury like the one you suffered.

(Learn about slip and fall claims on government property, on private property, and on snow and ice.)

The Messy Food Court

You and some friends went to the Megacity Sports Arena to watch a basketball game. Another fan dropped a drink carrier with six jumbo sodas on the floor next to a food court condiments station. The station is within the direct sight line of the food court checkout area, staffed by many employees. Several workers saw the spill happen, but they were busy helping other customers so they did nothing about it.

The spill remained an icy, slippery mess for over an hour. After buying food for your party, you went to the condiments station to get ketchup, mustard, napkins, and the like. As you approached the station, you slipped and fell on the spilled soda, breaking your wrist. Do you have a slip and fall claim? Probably so.

The six jumbo spilled drinks easily qualify as a dangerous condition. Several employees had actual notice of the danger, and in plenty of time to do something about it before you fell. Their failure to act—by cleaning up the mess or placing warnings around it—means they were negligent. Because of their negligence, you fell and were hurt.

Failing to Protect Fans From Hazards of the Sport

Spectators sometimes are injured, often seriously, by a hazard of the game—like a fly ball or a fast-moving hockey puck. Because they're part of the game, there's nothing the facility owner or operator can do to stop these dangers.

But everyone knows these things happen from time to time, and when they do, the consequences can be dire. Because of the risk of severe harm, owners and operators have a legal duty to minimize the chances of fan injury when things go wrong.

Common Protective Measures

Baseball stadiums typically have netting behind home plate to stop foul balls. Hockey rinks have shatter-proof glass surrounding the ice to keep pucks from careening into the stands. These dangers might be considered open and obvious, and the facility's owner or operator likely would argue that fans assume the risk of injury by attending the game.

But these dangers are different than accumulated snow and ice. A foul ball or hockey puck is moving so fast that even the most vigilant spectators probably don't have a reasonable chance to protect themselves from serious injury.

What if you're sitting down the first or third base line, where there's no netting? Or a puck manages to clear the protective glass and causes injuries? The stadium industry has standards for how far away from home plate netting should extend, and for the height (and other characteristics) of rink barriers. If the facility where you were injured didn't meet those standards, you might have a viable negligence claim.

Duty to Maintain

Of course, when a sports facility installs protective netting or glass, there's a duty to maintain and repair it as necessary. If a baseball manages to find a hole in the netting, or a puck shatters a glass panel because it was cracked or damaged, you can claim that your injury resulted from negligent failure to maintain the protective equipment.

What About That Disclaimer and Release?

Take a look at the back of your event ticket. There, in very small print, you'll find a lengthy disclaimer and release. In it, the facility owner and operator seek to disclaim any responsibility for injuries you suffer, and you agree to release them from legal liability. Is this disclaimer and release legally binding?

The answer is: Probably yes, but there are some important qualifiers. First, courts sometimes take a dim view of these "take it or leave it" agreements. The parties don't have anything close to equal bargaining power, which might call into question whether they truly made a deal.

Second, even in states that respect these releases, they only allow the facility owner or operator to disclaim responsibility for ordinary negligence. If a court finds that they were grossly negligent or reckless, the release won't hold up.

Finally, and again because of the parties' unequal bargaining power, most courts will limit the scope of a release to only those dangers that are clearly within its terms. You might be bound by a release from liability for ordinary negligence that leads to a foul-ball injury. But that release won't do the owner or operator any good if you're hurt by a spectator who manages to bring a deadly weapon onto the premises. That's outside the scope of your release and isn't a hazard of the game.

Next Steps

If you were injured at a sporting event and you're considering an insurance claim or a lawsuit, you can expect the stadium owner, operator or vendor to put up a fight. Sports teams work hard, and spend lots of money, to cultivate a fun, fan-friendly reputation. When a spectator gets badly injured, that reputation can take a hit.

You need a lawyer who knows their way around claims and lawsuits like these. An experienced lawyer will locate potentially responsible parties, negotiate with insurers and, if necessary, file and handle your case in court. Your best chance for a successful result will come from having legal counsel on your side.

When you're ready to move forward, here's how to find an attorney who's right for you.