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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N

C O U R T O F A P P E A L S

TORY BAUGHAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

and

MEGAN MACNEILL,

Plaintiff, 

UNPUBLISHED

October 16, 2018

v No. 338036

Ontonagon Circuit Court

MID AMERICA SNOW AND TERRAIN 

EXPERT RACERS, doing business as MASTERS 

RACING CIRCUIT,

LC No. 2014-000111-NO

Defendant/Third-Party PlaintiffAppellee,

and

DEREK ZIMNEY and POLARIS INDUSTRIES, 

INC., 

Third-Party Defendants. 

Before: MURPHY, P.J., and SAWYER and SWARTZLE, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

In this interlocutory appeal, plaintiff Tory Baughan1 appeals by leave granted2 the trial 

court’s order granting in part and denying in part defendant’s motion for summary disposition, in 

 1 The trial court dismissed plaintiff Megan MacNeill’s negligence claim, and this appeal 

concerns only the court’s ruling regarding the applicable standard of care with respect to 

Baughan’s negligence claim. Accordingly, unless otherwise indicated, we use “plaintiff” to refer 

to Baughan.
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which it ruled that a “recklessness” standard of care applies to plaintiff’s negligence claim. We 

reverse the trial court’s ruling and hold that defendant is subject to a duty of ordinary care. 

I. BACKGROUND

In February 2012, plaintiffs, Baughan and Megan MacNeill, were injured during a 

snowmobile “hillclimb” racing event sponsored by defendant.

3

 Plaintiffs were watching the race 

within a designated and unprotected spectator area when Derek Zimney, one of the racers, 

became dismounted from his Polaris snowmobile on his way up the hill. Zimney’s driverless 

snowmobile continued to travel back down the hill at a high rate of speed before colliding with 

plaintiffs. Plaintiffs sued under theories of negligence, premises liability, gross negligence, and 

willful and wanton misconduct. 

Defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8) and (C)(10). The 

motions were denied with respect to the gross negligence and wanton misconduct claims and 

granted with respect to the premises liability and willful misconduct claims. As a result of the 

motions, the trial court dismissed MacNeill’s negligence claim, concluding that she signed an 

enforceable waiver of liability. With respect to Baughan’s negligence claim, however, the court 

ruled that a genuine issue of material fact remained and that the applicable standard of care is the 

“recklessness” standard articulated in Ritchie-Gamester v City of Berkley, 461 Mich 73; 597 

NW2d 517 (1999), and applied in Benejam v Detroit Tigers, Inc, 246 Mich App 645; 635 NW2d 

219 (2001). 

II. ANALYSIS

The sole issue before this Court in this interlocutory appeal is whether the limited duty of 

care adopted in Ritchie-Gamester for coparticipants in recreational activities—and extended, in 

Benejam, to baseball stadium owners with respect to spectators—similarly applies with respect 

to spectators of a snowmobile racing event. We hold that it does not. 

“The existence of a legal duty is a question of law for the Court to decide,” Groncki v 

Detroit Edison Co, 453 Mich 644, 649; 557 NW2d 289 (1996), and this Court reviews questions 

of law de novo, Herald Co, Inc v Eastern Mich Univ Bd of Regents, 475 Mich 463, 471-472; 719 

NW2d 19 (2006). 

The trial court’s determination that a recklessness standard applies to plaintiff’s 

negligence claim is drawn from the rule announced in Ritchie-Gamester and applied in Benejam. 

In Ritchie-Gamester, 461 Mich at 75, the plaintiff was struck and injured by another skater, who 

 2 Baughan v Mid America Snow and Terrain Expert Racers, unpublished order of the Court of 

Appeals, entered September 15, 2017 (Docket No. 338036).

3 Because the third-party defendants are not parties to this appeal, we use “defendant” to refer to 

Mid America Snow and Terrain Expert Racers, doing business as Masters Racing Circuit.
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the plaintiff alleged “was skating backward without keeping a proper lookout behind her” during 

an open skating session. The Court determined that such allegations merely amounted to 

carelessness or negligence, and announced “that coparticipants in a recreational activity owe 

each other a duty not to act recklessly.” Id. at 90, 95. The Court’s analysis was “limited to a 

determination of the proper standard of care among coparticipants for unintentional conduct in 

recreational activities.” Id. at 77.

The Ritchie-Gamester recklessness standard has generally been limited to coparticipants 

in recreational activities. See Behar v Fox, 249 Mich App 314, 316-318; 642 NW2d 426 (2001) 

(recklessness standard applied to youth soccer player’s claim against coach for injuries sustained 

when coach used “full effort” while participating in a scrimmage); Sherry v East Suburban 

Football League, 292 Mich App 23, 27-28; 807 NW2d 859 (2011) (recklessness standard did not 

apply to injured cheerleader’s claim against her coach for failure to supervise). 

The trial court here analogized the circumstances in this case to those in Benejam, 246 

Mich App at 647, 654-657, in which this Court, relying in part on Ritchie-Gamester, held that “a 

baseball stadium owner is not liable for injuries to spectators that result from projectiles leaving 

the field during play if safety screening has been provided behind home plate and there are a 

sufficient number of protected seats to meet ordinary demand.” There, the plaintiff was seated 

along the third base line, close to the ball field, when she was struck and injured by a baseball bat 

fragment. Id. at 647. Although the plaintiff was seated behind a net that was affixed behind 

home plate and partially extended down the first and third base lines, she claimed that the net 

was not sufficiently long and that the defendant provided inadequate warnings of projectiles 

leaving the field. Id. at 647-648. 

Benejam was specifically concerned with the general concept of protective screening at 

baseball stadiums, and this Court essentially adopted the multijurisdictional majority approach 

for baseball stadium owners’ liability. Id. at 649-658. “The logic of these precedents is that 

there is an inherent risk of objects leaving the playing field that people know about when they 

attend baseball games.” Id. at 651. This Court also noted the “inherent value” in allowing most 

seats to remain unprotected, because baseball spectators generally desire to be intimately 

involved with the game and hope to come in contact with a souvenir baseball from the field. Id. 

Thus, to a certain extent, spectators welcome the risk of their presence knowing that, “as a 

natural result of play,” objects may leave the field and potentially injure them. Id. at 651, 653. 

A critical concept underlying the limited-duty rule also concerns the stadium owner’s interest in 

accommodating fans who enjoy unobstructed seating while also protecting those seated in the 

most dangerous areas. Id. at 656. 

In Van Guilder v Collier, 248 Mich App 633, 634-637; 650 NW2d 340 (2001), this Court 

declined to apply the Ritchie-Gamester recklessness standard to a negligence action in which the 

plaintiff was injured in an off-road vehicle (ORV) accident when the defendant, in an attempt to 

help the plaintiff reach the top of a hill, used his ORV to “nudge” the plaintiff’s ORV, causing it 

to flip over. The trial court relied on Ritchie-Gamester in granting the defendant’s motion for 

summary disposition and holding that the standard of care for claims arising out of recreational 

activity is recklessness, and the plaintiff’s allegations merely supported a claim of ordinary 

negligence. Id. at 635. The plaintiff argued on appeal that the trial court’s application of a 

recklessness standard of care was erroneous because the type of recreational activity considered 
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in Ritchie-Gamester did not include the operation of motorized recreation vehicles, and this 

Court agreed. Id. This Court’s reasoning was bifurcated. First, it distinguished RitchieGamester, and second, it held that under the Michigan Vehicle Code (MVC), MCL 257.1 et seq., 

an ORV is a motor vehicle, and, therefore, “liability may be imposed for its negligent operation.” 

Van Guilder, 248 Mich App at 636-637, 639. This Court addressed Ritchie-Gamester as 

follows:

In that case, the Court primarily focused its analysis on injuries sustained during 

the course of recreational activities that typically or foreseeably involve physical 

contact between coparticipants. To the contrary, a person operating a motorized 

recreation vehicle does not reasonably expect or anticipate the risk of physical 

contact, nor is such risk an obvious or necessary danger inherent to its normal 

operation. The Ritchie-Gamester Court did not contemplate injuries that occur as 

a result of physical contact between two such vehicles. This distinction is 

dispositive. We decline to adopt defendant’s speculative conclusion that our 

Supreme Court intended that a recklessness standard of care apply with regard to 

the operation of motorized recreation vehicles simply because they are usually 

used for recreational purposes. The operation of motor vehicles, including ORVs, 

is not governed by the “rules of the game,” but by the law. [Id. at 636-637.] 

In this case, the trial court apparently did not consider Van Guilder. Instead, it concluded 

that the Ritchie-Gamester reasoning applies “in the same way that it did to the [Benejam] 

spectator case.” The court opined that plaintiff is knowledgeable about snowmobiles generally 

and snowmobile competitions specifically, and that “[t]he possibility that a snowmobile may 

leave the race course is an inherent risk in snowmobile competitions, of which spectators are 

aware.” The court noted that “more than a few spectators” prefer to be “close to the action” and 

close to the race course “in unobstructed and uninsulated contact with the sport,” and also noted 

that a more protected observation point was made available to spectators at the bottom of the hill. 

Finally, the court opined that application of a limited duty would “avoid unduly restricting 

people in the enjoyment of watching competitive snowmobile competitions by limiting a 

potentially debilitating threat of litigation.” 

The trial court’s holding is an overextension of the analysis in Benejam and is not 

consistent with the Ritchie-Gamester analysis in Van Guilder. The trial court’s reasoning is 

flawed because it equates the risk of being struck down by a driverless snowmobile at a 

snowmobile race with that of objects leaving the field at a baseball game. However, the Benejam 

Court was careful to discuss the “inherent risk”—of which fans are aware—“of objects leaving 

the playing field” “as a natural result of play.” Benejam, 246 Mich App at 651-653. As a natural 

consequence of the game of baseball, objects leave the field; balls are struck, and they often 

leave the boundaries of the field, in an attempt to score runs. Conversely, a rider becoming 

dismounted from a snowmobile during a snowmobile race is not a natural consequence of the 

race because riders do not routinely dismount their snowmobiles in an attempt to win. 

Therefore, the risk of being struck by a driverless, runaway snowmobile is not an “inherent risk”

that occurs as a “natural result” of the race. Id. at 651, 653. Furthermore, the Benejam Court 

ascribed significant weight to the “inherent value” in allowing most baseball stadium seats to 

remain unprotected because baseball spectators generally desire to be intimately involved with 

the game and hope to come in contact with a souvenir baseball from the field. Benejam, 246 
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Mich App at 651-653. To a certain extent, baseball spectators welcome the risk they undertake 

while attending a baseball game, while spectators of snowmobile races cannot be said to openly 

welcome the risk of coming into contact with a driverless, runaway snowmobile. 

In summary, Benejam is inapposite to the circumstances of this case because plaintiff’s 

injury was not a natural consequence of spectating at a snowmobile race, and because his injury 

did not arise from an occurrence that a snowmobile racing fan reasonably anticipates or 

welcomes to any extent. A person observing a snowmobile racing event “does not reasonably 

expect or anticipate the risk of physical contact,” nor is the risk of being struck by a driverless, 

runaway snowmobile an “obvious or necessary danger” inherent in the competitive operation of 

snowmobiles. Van Guilder, 248 Mich App at 636. 

Finally, defendant argues that MCL 324.82126(8) supports the assertion that plaintiff’s 

proximity to the snowmobile race should have made him aware “that a runaway snowmobile 

could strike any person within a restricted area” and, accordingly, that a limited duty should 

apply. The statute pertinently provides: 

Each person who participates in the sport of snowmobiling accepts the 

risks associated with that sport insofar as the dangers are obvious and inherent. 

Those risks include, but are not limited to, injuries to persons or property that can 

result from variations in terrain; surface or subsurface snow or ice conditions; 

bare spots; rocks, trees, and other forms of natural growth or debris; and collisions 

with signs, fences, or other snowmobiles or snow-grooming equipment. Those 

risks do not include injuries to persons or property that can result from the use of 

a snowmobile by another person in a careless or negligent manner likely to 

endanger person or property. [MCL 324.82126(8) (emphasis supplied).] 

The language of MCL 324.82126(8) does not support defendant’s position. Beyond the 

statute’s applicability to persons “who participate[] in the sport of snowmobiling,” and 

plaintiff’s status as a spectator, its language supports our conclusion that the applicable standard 

with respect to a spectator is ordinary care. The statute enumerates certain risks that are inherent 

in the activity of riding snowmobiles and obvious to those who participate in that activity, e.g., 

ice conditions and bare spots, and clearly indicates that such risks do not include injuries 

resulting from another’s negligent or careless use of a snowmobile. The statute thus recognizes a 

negligence standard. See Van Guilder, 248 Mich App at 636-639. 

Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not 

retain jurisdiction. 

/s/ William B. Murphy

/s/ David H. Sawyer

/s/ Brock A. Swartzle