156 Misc. 311 | N.Y. App. Term. | 1935
Judgment unanimously reversed upon the law, with thirty dollars costs to appellants, and complaint dismissed, with appropriate costs in the court below.
Plaintiff, a spectator at a hockey match, was injured by being struck by the puck. Plaintiff was seated in the front row at the side of the rink. The rink was equipped, as practically all such rinks are, with nets at each end behind the goal, but no nets on the sides. The proof showed that occasionally the puck would come over the wooden railing that was about three and one-half feet high, into the seats where the spectators sat.
No case has been found which passes upon this exact situation. There are, however, a number of cases where spectators at baseball games have been injured by batted balls coming into the stand. The concensus of opinion in those cases is that there is no liability; that the proprietors of a baseball park are not obliged to screen all the seats; that spectators occupying seats that are not screened assume the risk incident to such use. (Blackhall v. Capitol District Baseball Assn., 154 Misc. 640; Brisson v. Minneapolis Baseball & Athletic Assn., 185 Minn. 507; 240 N. W. 903; Crane v. Kansas City Baseball
Present, Cropsey, MacCrate and Bonynge, JJ.