Court Opinion

ID: 9666244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:08:49.780403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:25.236121
License: Public Domain

PALMORE, Judge
(dissenting).
In the absence of assumed risk or contributory negligence it seems to me that a guest using a private road crossing a golf course is in the same position as a member of the general public using a public road running through a golf course. I therefore agree that the club which maintains such a golf course should be liable as a matter of law to the unsuspecting victim struck by a golf ball while he is using the road for its intended purpose. But I believe also that the golf player ought to be held equally liable. He is just as aware of the danger to innocent third parties as the club is. He is not forced to play on the course, and if the course is so laid out that he is invited to play his ball close to or across a road, public or private, I think he should do so at his own risk, always. This viewpoint is not based on precedent, because I am aware that the golfer’s negligence is generally held to be a matter for the jury to decide. But perhaps the courts that have written the law that way have been country club oriented. I think the average man in the street, by and large, would feel differently. And he is the only true source of the common law.
It follows that I would hold the golfei and the country club in pari delicto and require contribution,
HILL, J., joins in this dissent.