Opinion ID: 1693536
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Current State of the Law

Text: Before we begin our review of the law in this area, we must recognize the limitations of the scope of the case before us. First, there is no allegation that defendant intended the contact with plaintiff, or that she intended plaintiff's injuries. Second, we are not asked to consider the liability of the owner or operator of the ice rink. Thus, our analysis is limited to a determination of the proper standard of care among coparticipants for unintentional conduct in recreational activities.
We begin by reviewing the current state of Michigan law regarding the appropriate standard of care in the recreational activity context. In one of our older cases, Williams v. Wood, 260 Mich. 322, 244 N.W. 490 (1932), the plaintiff was injured while fishing. Apparently, the defendant tried to cast but instead hit the plaintiff in the head with the end of his rod, and, in so doing lodged a fish-hook in the plaintiff's eye. The Court reviewed a number of earlier cases from Michigan and other jurisdictions dealing with various outdoor sports, and eventually concluded that the defendant's liability was a question of ordinary care: The general rule that may be deduced from the cases hereinbefore cited is that certain risks of accident attend all outdoor sports and recovery may be had only if an injury is the result of negligence that could and should have been avoided by the use of ordinary care. [ Id. at 327, 244 N.W. 490.] We note that the Court did not explain the relationship between the risks that attend all outdoor sports and a participant's duty to coparticipants. This Court visited a related issue in Felgner v. Anderson, 375 Mich. 23, 133 N.W.2d 136 (1965). In Felgner, one duck hunter shot another accidentally. The injured hunter sued the shooter for negligence. At trial, the defendant requested that the jury be instructed regarding assumption of risk. Id. at 29, 133 N.W.2d 136. The defendant argued that, by engaging in the activity of hunting, the plaintiff had assumed the risk of being shot accidentally and, therefore, that the defendant should not be held liable for the plaintiff's injuries. The trial court refused to so instruct the jury, and the defendant appealed. This Court then held that the assumption of risk doctrine did not apply in most negligence actions, concluding instead that it should only be applied in cases in which an employment relationship existed between the parties. Id. at 55-56, 133 N.W.2d 136. Importantly, before Felgner, the assumption of risk doctrine was available to defendants in ordinary negligence actions. Waltanen v. Wiitala, 361 Mich. 504, 105 N.W.2d 400 (1960). After Felgner abolished assumption of the risk in this context, some of the published cases began to move away from the ordinary care standard. In Overall v. Kadella, 138 Mich.App. 351, 361 N.W.2d 352 (1984), on which the trial court relied, the plaintiff was injured when the defendant struck him during a fight that occurred after an amateur hockey game. The defendant asserted that participants in a hockey game should not be able to sue for injuries incurred during the game, arguing volenti non fit injuria. [3] The Court rejected this argument, concluding: Participation in a game involves a manifestation of consent to those bodily contacts which are permitted by the rules of the game. Restatement Torts, 2d, § 50, comment b. However, there is general agreement that an intentional act causing injury, which goes beyond what is ordinarily permissible, is an assault and battery for which recovery may be had. 4 Am.Jur.2d, Amusements and Exhibitions, § 86, p. 211. [ Id. at 357, 361 N.W.2d 352.] Defendant cites Overall for the proposition that a plaintiff involved in a sport may not sue for injuries caused by conduct that is merely negligent. While some of the language in Overall tends to support defendant's position, Overall involved an intentional act, and, to the extent it suggested a standard for nonintentional acts, it did so only in dicta. The dicta from Overall became a holding in Higgins v. Pfeiffer, 215 Mich.App. 423, 546 N.W.2d 645 (1996). The plaintiff in Higgins was injured by an errant baseball. Before a game, a pitcher and catcher on the plaintiff's team were warming up by throwing a baseball back and forth. The plaintiff was sitting in the dugout, and the pitcher was throwing toward the dugout. On one particular throw, the ball sailed over the catcher's head and struck the plaintiff in the eye. The plaintiff sued, and the trial court granted summary disposition for the coach, the pitcher, and the catcher. The Court of Appeals affirmed in a two-to-one decision, with the majority concluding that a participant in a sporting activity consent[s] to the risk of injury inherent in the contest.... Id. at 425, 546 N.W.2d 645. [4] Another Court of Appeals case, decided only weeks before Higgins, took a different tack. In Schmidt v. Youngs, 215 Mich.App. 222, 544 N.W.2d 743 (1996), the plaintiff was injured when he was struck by a golf ball. Contrary to the custom of staying behind the ball of the person who is about to hit, the plaintiff had positioned himself some thirty yards in front and to the right of the point where defendant was to play his ball. The defendant shanked the ball and hit the plaintiff. The Court of Appeals affirmed summary disposition for the defendant, quoting Am. Jur. 2d: A person who engages in the game of golf is not an insurer of the safety of others, and he is only required to exercise ordinary care for the safety of persons reasonably within the range of danger. Generally, one who is about to strike a golf ball must, in the exercise of ordinary care, give an adequate and timely notice to those who are unaware of his intention to play and who may be endangered by the play. Conversely, there is no duty to give advance warning to persons who are on contiguous holes or fairways, and not in the line of play, if danger to them is not reasonably to be anticipated. Also, where the person injured was in a place where he should have been reasonably safe, and he was aware of the player's intention to play the ball, an oral or audible warning would have been superfluous and is therefore unnecessary. [4 Am.Jur.2d, Amusements and Exhibitions, § 87, pp. 211-212 (1995 interim pamphlet).] [215 Mich.App. at 225, 544 N.W.2d 743.] Although it affirmed summary disposition for the defendant, the Court in Schmidt applied an ordinary care standard. In doing so, the Court posited that, while one may consent to the inherent risks of being a spectator or participant in a sport, one does not ordinarily consent to another's negligence. Id. at 228, 544 N.W.2d 743. On the basis of a review of the published cases in Michigan, there seems to be general agreement that participants in recreational activities are not liable for every mishap that results in injury, and that certain risks inhere in all such activities. Our older opinions generally applied an ordinary care standard. However, the more recent cases from the Court of Appeals appear to be divided regarding the level of duty, or the standard of care, owed to coparticipants.
Other jurisdictions have generally taken one of two approaches to this issue. In a few states, ordinary care continues to be the standard. See Auckenthaler v. Grundmeyer, 110 Nev. 682, 877 P.2d 1039 (1994); Lestina v. West Bend Mut. Ins. Co., 176 Wis.2d 901, 501 N.W.2d 28 (1993). [5] In the majority of other jurisdictions, however, the courts have adopted a reckless or intentional conduct or a wilful and wanton or intentional misconduct standard. See, e.g., Jaworski v. Kiernan, 241 Conn. 399, 408, 696 A.2d 332 (1997) (adopting a reckless or intentional conduct standard in a case involving a coed recreational soccer game); Hoke v. Cullinan, 914 S.W.2d 335, 337 (Ky., 1995) (adopting a reckless disregard for the safety of others standard in a case involving a person hit by a ball between points in a tennis match); Crawn v. Campo, 136 N.J. 494, 643 A.2d 600, 601 (1994) (adopting a reckless or intentional standard in a case involving a pickup softball game); Hathaway v. Tascosa Country Club, Inc., 846 S.W.2d 614, 616 (Tex.App., 1993) (adopting a reckless or intentional standard in a case involving a golfer struck by another golfer's ball); Knight v. Jewett, 3 Cal.4th 296, 302,11 Cal.Rptr.2d 2, 834 P.2d 696 (1992) (adopting a reckless or intentional standard in a case involving an injury suffered in a touch football game); Marchetti v. Kalish, 53 Ohio St.3d 95, 559 N.E.2d 699 (1990) (adopting a reckless or intentional standard in a case involving children playing kick the can); Gauvin v. Clark, 404 Mass. 450, 454, 537 N.E.2d 94 (1989) (adopting a reckless disregard of safety standard in a case involving a college hockey game); Turcotte v. Fell, 68 N.Y.2d 432, 510 N.Y.S.2d 49, 502 N.E.2d 964 (1986) (adopting a reckless or intentional standard in a case involving a professional jockey injured in a fall during a thoroughbred horse race); Ross v. Clouser, 637 S.W.2d 11, 14 (Mo., 1982) (adopting a reckless disregard for the safety of the other player standard in a case involving a slow-pitch, church league softball game). [6] The cases adopting a recklessness standard have recognized different reasons for departing from the ordinary negligence standard. Some courts have held that a participant assumes the risk of the activity: We hold that where individuals engage in recreational or sports activities, they assume the ordinary risks of the activity and cannot recover for any injury unless it can be shown that the other participant's actions were either `reckless' or `intentional'.... Marchetti, supra, 53 Ohio St.3d at 100, 559 N.E.2d 699. In states where assumption of the risk has been abolished, some courts have held that a participant consents to conduct normally associated with the activity: Traditionally, the participant's conduct was conveniently analyzed in terms of the defensive doctrine of assumption of risk. With the enactment of the comparative negligence statute, however, assumption of risk is no longer an absolute defense. Thus, it has become necessary, and quite proper, when measuring a defendant's duty to a plaintiff to consider the risks assumed by the plaintiff. The shift in analysis is proper because the doctrine [of assumption of risk] deserves no separate existence (except for express assumption of risk) and is simply a confusing way of stating certain no-duty rules. Accordingly, the analysis of care owed to plaintiff in the professional sporting event by a coparticipant and by the proprietor of the facility in which it takes place must be evaluated by considering the risks plaintiff assumed when he elected to participate in the event and how those assumed risks qualified defendants' duty to him. The risk assumed has been defined a number of ways but in its most basic sense it means that the plaintiff, in advance, has given his ... consent to relieve the defendant of an obligation of conduct toward him, and to take his chances of injury from a known risk arising from what the defendant is to do or leave undone. The situation is then the same as where the plaintiff consents to the infliction of what would otherwise be an intentional tort, except that the consent is to run the risk of unintended injury.... The result is that the defendant is relieved of legal duty to the plaintiff; and being under no duty, he cannot be charged with negligence.