Court Opinion

ID: 9785873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:44:51.941054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:10.496829
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in part I of the majority opinion. There, the majority correctly holds that the statutory immunity conferred on public entities for an injury occurring during a “hazardous recreational activity” (Gov. Code, § 831.7) does not apply to injuries in intercollegiate baseball games.
I do not, however, join part II of the majority opinion. There, the majority holds that a baseball pitcher owes no duty to refrain from intentionally throwing a baseball at an opposing player’s head. This is a startling conclusion. It is contrary to the official view in the sport that such conduct “should be—and is—condemned by everybody.” (Off. Rules of Major League Baseball, rule 8.02(d), off. corns.)
Central to the majority’s holding is its reliance on the legal rule that there is no duty to avoid risks “inherent” in a recreational sport.1 This rule had its inception in this court’s plurality opinion in Knight v. Jewett (1992) 3 Cal.4th 296 [11 Cal.Rptr.2d 2, 834 P.2d 696], and it was later embraced by a majority of this court in Kahn v. East Side Union High School Dist. (2003) 31 Cal.4th 990 [4 Cal.Rptr.3d 103, 75 P.3d 30]. Unlike good wine, this rule has not *169improved with age. I have repeatedly voiced my disagreement with this court’s adoption of that rule, which is “tearing at the fabric of tort law” (Cheong v. Antablin (1997) 16 Cal.4th 1063, 1075 [68 Cal.Rptr.2d 859, 946 P.2d 817] (conc. opn. of Kennard, J.); see also Kahn v. East Side Union High School Dist., supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 1021-1022 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.)), because it “distort[s] the negligence concept of due care to encompass reckless and intentional conduct.” (Cheong, supra, at p. 1075 (conc. opn. of Kennard, J.).) Moreover, because the question of what is “inherent” in a sport is amorphous and fact-intensive, it is impossible for trial courts “to discern, at an early stage in the proceedings, which risks are inherent in a given sport.” (Knight v. Jewett, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 337 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).) As explained below, this case illustrates that the no-duty-for-sports rule is unworkable and unfair.2
I
Citrus Community College hosted a team from Rio Hondo Community College to compete in a baseball game. (Both schools are located in Southern California.) Because this was a preseason practice game, there was no umpire. Shortly after the Rio Hondo pitcher hit a Citrus player with a pitched ball, the Citrus pitcher, allegedly in retaliation, hit Rio Hondo player Jose Luis Avila in the head with a pitch. Avila suffered unspecified injuries.
Avila sued the Citrus Community College District (the District) and other parties not relevant here, alleging causes of action for general negligence, premises liability, products liability, and intentional tort. As pertinent here, Avila asserted the District was liable for (1) conducting an illegal preseason game in violation of community college rules, (2) failing to supervise and control the Citrus pitcher, (3) failing to provide umpires or other supervisory personnel to prevent reckless and retaliatory pitching, and (4) failing to summon medical care after Avila was hurt.3
*170The District demurred. Curiously, it made no mention of the no-duty-for-sports rule. Rather, the District asserted that it was not liable under Government Code section 831.7, which immunizes public entities from liability for an injury occurring during a “hazardous recreational activity,” and that plaintiff Avila could not assert a claim for premises liability because he had not alleged that the conditions of the baseball field played any role in the injury. The trial court sustained the District’s demurrer without granting Avila leave to amend his initial complaint, but the Court of Appeal reversed. This court granted the District’s petition for review.
II
The first, third, and fourth of the legal theories alleged in Avila’s complaint can be disposed of without resort to the no-duty-for-sports rule.
Avila’s first theory of liability (that the District conducted an illegal preseason game) fails because, as the majority explains, the District did not breach any duty to Avila by conducting the game, irrespective of whether community college rules permitted it to be played. Avila’s third theory (that the District failed to provide umpires) must be rejected because baseball games are often played without umpires, and there is no reason to impose on community colleges a duty to provide them. (See generally Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 [70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561].) And Avila’s fourth theory (that the District failed to provide medical care) fails because, as the majority points out, the District had no duty to provide medical care when Avila’s team came equipped with its own trainers, who were present to treat his injuries.
Avila’s second theory of liability (that the District failed to supervise and control the Citrus pitcher) presents a more difficult question. As the majority notes, colleges “ordinarily are not vicariously liable for the actions of their student-athletes during competition.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 167.) Although Avila now argues that the District would be liable if its coaches ordered or allowed a retaliatory pitch aimed at Avila’s head, his complaint does not expressly allege that they did so. Thus, his failure to do so justifies the trial court’s decision to sustain the District’s demurrer. But the trial court should have given Avila at least one opportunity to amend his original complaint to include such an allegation. (See generally 5 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Pleading, § 944, p. 402 [“An amendment should be allowed where the defect, though one of substance, may possibly be cured by supplying omitted allegations, and the plaintiff has not had a fair opportunity to do so, as where the demurrer was sustained to his first complaint.”].)
*171The majority, however, upholds the trial court’s sustaining of the District’s demurrer without leave to amend. Relying on the no-duty-for-sports rule, the majority, in essence, concludes that even if the District’s coaches had ordered the Citrus pitcher to hit Avila in the head with a pitched ball, the District is not liable for Avila’s injuries because the risk that a batter will be injured by a pitch intentionally thrown at his head is “an inherent risk of the sport.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 164.) According to the majority, “[s]ome of the most respected baseball managers and pitchers have openly discussed the fundamental place [that] throwing at batters has in their sport.” (Ibid.) The majority acknowledges that those comments were made in the context of professional baseball. The majority then proceeds to hold that throwing at batters is a risk as inherent in college baseball as it is in professional baseball. My concerns are threefold.
First, the determination whether being hit by a pitched ball intentionally aimed at one’s head is an inherent risk of baseball, whether professional or intercollegiate, is a question of fact to be determined in the trial court. “It has long been the general rule and understanding that ‘an appeal reviews the correctness of a judgment as of the time of its rendition, upon a record of matters which were before the trial court for its consideration.’ [Citation.] This rule reflects an ‘essential distinction between the trial and the appellate court . . . that it is the province of the trial court to decide questions of fact and of the appellate court to decide questions of law ....’” (In re Zeth S. (2003) 31 Cal.4th 396, 405 [2 Cal.Rptr.3d 683, 73 P.3d 541], italics added.) Here, the trial court never heard, and thus never considered, the comments from professional baseball managers and pitchers on which the majority relies; indeed, not only did the District offer no evidence on this issue, but the District did not even argue that Avila’s complaint was barred by the no-duty-for-sports rule. Undeterred, the majority has done its own research and made its own factual findings on this issue, thus invading the province of the trial court.
I recognize that this court must take judicial notice of “[f]acts and propositions of generalized knowledge that are so universally known that they cannot reasonably be the subject of dispute.” (Evid. Code, § 451, subd. (f); see also Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (h) [court may take judicial notice of “[f]acts and propositions that are not reasonably subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy.”].) But the majority’s assertion that intentionally throwing a ball at a batter’s head is inherent in intercollegiate baseball is not a fact so “universally known” that it “cannot reasonably be the subject of dispute.” (Evid. Code, § 451, subd. (f).)
*172Had Avila been given the opportunity in the trial court, he might well have called expert witnesses who could have refuted the majority’s factual determination that aiming at a batter’s head is inherent in professional baseball. And he could have pointed to the official comments accompanying Major League Baseball’s rule 8.02(d), which prohibits pitchers from trying to hit the batter: “To pitch at a batter’s head is unsportsmanlike and highly dangerous. It should be—and is—condemned by everybody. Umpires should act without hesitation in enforcement of this rule.” (Off. Rules of Major League Baseball, rule 8.02(d), off. corns.)
Alternatively, Avila could have called expert witnesses to refute the majority’s finding, which is unsupported by any citation of authority, that the conduct in question is as inherent in intercollegiate baseball as it is in professional baseball. And he could have pointed out that, unlike the rules of professional baseball, the rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association provide that a pitcher who intentionally throws at a batter is not only ejected from the game in which the pitch was thrown, but is also suspended for the team’s next four games, and a pitcher who intentionally throws at a batter on three occasions must be suspended for the remainder of the season. (Nat. Collegiate Athletic Assn., NCAA Baseball Rules (Dec. 2005) rule 5, § 16(d).)
I turn to my second concern. This matter is here after an appeal from the trial court’s order sustaining a demurrer. A demurrer “tests the pleading alone, and . . . lies only where the defects appear on the face of the pleading.” (5 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, supra, Pleading, § 900, p. 358.) It raises only questions of law. (Id. at p. 357.) But by relying on the no-duty-for-sports rule to hold that the District’s demurrer was properly sustained, the majority imposes on trial courts the obligation to decide—in ruling on a demurrer—a question of fact: that is, whether a particular sports injury arises from an activity inherent in the game. Questions of fact cannot be decided on demurrer, however; they must be decided on summary judgment or at trial. Thus, the no-duty-for-sports rule is unworkable because it forces trial courts to decide questions of fact at the demurrer stage when the only method available to them is suitable only for deciding questions of law.
My third concern is that the majority’s application of the no-duty-for-sports rule to include pitches intentionally thrown at a batter’s head is an ill-conceived expansion of that rule into intentional torts. In Knight, the plaintiff alleged only that the defendant acted negligently (Knight v. Jewett, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 318), and the plurality there justified the no-duty-for-sports rule with the comment that a baseball player should not be held liable “for an *173injury resulting from a carelessly thrown ball or bat during a baseball game” (ibid., italics added). Here, however, the majority applies that rule to hold that the trial court properly sustained the District’s demurrer to Avila’s cause of action alleging an intentional tort, in which he alleged that the pitch that hit him “was thrown in a deliberate retaliatory fashion, with reckless disregard for the safety of plaintiff.” Even if I were to accept the majority’s misguided no-duty-for-sports rule, I would apply it only to causes of action for negligence, not for intentional torts.
I would analyze Avila’s claim under the traditional doctrine of assumption of risk. Under that doctrine, the pertinent inquiry is not what risk is inherent in a particular sport; rather, it is what risk the plaintiff consciously and voluntarily assumed. That issue, as I explained earlier, is not one involving a duty of care owed to another, to be resolved on demurrer; rather, it is an affirmative defense, to be resolved on summary judgment or at trial.
Under traditional assumption-of-risk analysis, “sports participants owe each other a duty to refrain from unreasonably risky conduct that may cause harm.” (Comment, Looking Beyond the Name of the Game: A Framework for Analyzing Recreational Sports Injury Cases, supra, 34 U.C. Davis L.Rev. at p. 1060.) Intentionally hitting another person in the head with a hard object thrown at a high speed is highly dangerous and is potentially tortious, no matter whether the object is a ball thrown on a baseball field or is a rock thrown on a city street. Thus, if the District here was complicit in a decision by the pitcher to hit Avila in the head with the baseball, it may be held liable for Avila’s injuries if Avila did not assume the risk that the pitcher would hit him in this manner. But, as I explained earlier, Avila has thus far not alleged that coaches employed by the District either advised or condoned any such act. Thus, the trial court properly sustained the District’s demurrer; but Avila should be given leave to amend his original complaint to allege that the District was legally responsible for the pitcher’s decision to aim the baseball at Avila’s head.
If Avila were to amend his complaint to allege the District’s complicity in the pitcher’s decision to hit him in the head with the baseball, the District should be permitted to deny liability on the ground that Avila assumed the risk of an intentional hit in the head during the game: that is, he “voluntarily accepted [that] risk with knowledge and appreciation of that risk.” (Knight v. Jewett, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 326 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).) Whether Avila assumed that risk is a question of fact that has no bearing on the District’s duty of care toward Avila. Therefore, it cannot be decided on demurrer, but should be decided on a motion for summary judgment or at trial.
*174I would remand the matter to the Court of Appeal, and have that court direct the trial court to sustain Avila’s demurrer with leave to amend the original complaint.

 In this opinion, I frequently refer to that rule as the no-duty-for-sports rule.

 Similar criticisms have appeared in scholarly journals. (See, e.g., Comment, Looking Beyond the Name of the Game: A Framework for Analyzing Recreational Sports Injury Cases (2001) 34 U.C. Davis L.Rev. 1029, 1057 [“The Knight decision sets an unreasonable standard of care for recreational sports injury cases that violates public policy.”]; Fore! American Golf Corporation v. Superior Court: The Continued Uneven Application of California’s Flawed Doctrine of Assumption of Risk (2001) 29 Western St. U. L.Rev. 125, 145-146 [“Knight’s vague guidelines regarding duty analysis” are “a flawed conceptualization of the doctrine of assumption of risk” that have “produced uneven results.”]; Sugarman, Judges as Tort Law Un-Makers: Recent California Experience with “New” Torts (1999) 49 DePaul L.Rev. 455, 485 [expressing “disagreement with the policy judgment that recreational injuries are an appropriate place for such a ‘no duty’ rule.”].)

 Avila’s complaint actually listed eight separate allegations, but the majority has consolidated and renumbered the allegations. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 163.) For the sake of clarity, I have adopted the majority’s numbering system.