CHAD SAUNDERS v. MIAMI SUNS YOUTH DEVELOPMENT INC.

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
FOURTH DISTRICT
CHAD SAUNDERS,
Appellant,
v.
THE BASEBALL FACTORY, INC., et al.,
Appellees.
No. 4D22-399
[May 17, 2023]
Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm
Beach County; John S. Kastrenakes, Judge; L.T. Case No.
502019CA008541MB.
Stephanie L. Serafin and Rebecca Mercier Vargas of Kreusler-Walsh,
Vargas & Serafin, P.A., West Palm Beach, and Charles D. Thomas of
Thompson & Thomas, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Hinda Klein of Conroy Simberg, Hollywood, for appellee The Baseball
Factory, Inc.
GROSS, J.
Chad Saunders, an umpire at a youth baseball tournament sponsored
by The Baseball Factory, Inc. (the “Baseball Factory”), was seriously
injured when a 17-year-old baseball player punched him in the face at the
end of a baseball game. Saunders sued the Baseball Factory and other
defendants. The trial court entered a final order dismissing the amended
complaint as to the Baseball Factory. Saunders appeals the dismissal.
We affirm because the Baseball Factory’s mere operation of a baseball
tournament did not give rise to a duty to protect the umpire from a battery
committed by a player, absent some additional risk factor that would have
placed the Baseball Factory on notice of the potential for violence.
Facts and Procedural History
The amended complaint alleges the following facts. The Baseball
Factory “is a company specializing in player development and college
placement of high school athletes in numerous sports including baseball.”
In July 2015, the Baseball Factory operated a baseball tournament at a
stadium in Jupiter, Florida. Co-Defendant Miami Suns Youth
Development (“Miami Suns”) entered a team into the tournament. The
Baseball Factory selected Saunders “to serve as an umpire” during the
tournament. The amended complaint contains no allegation of an
employment relationship between Saunders and the Baseball Factory.
During the tournament, Saunders was the home plate umpire for a
game between the Miami Suns and another team. In the final inning of
the game, the Miami Suns were trailing with two outs. A 17-year-old
Miami Suns player then came up to bat for the team.
After the player had received two strikes, the opposing pitcher threw a
pitch. Saunders called a third strike, and the player was called out. This
ended the game and the Miami Suns lost.
Upset with the called strike, the player threw down his helmet and
flung his bat against the backstop. He cursed at Saunders and argued
that the final pitch was not a strike. Saunders approached the player and
questioned his language, as post-game ejections were permitted under the
tournament rules.
Saunders told the player that the call was correct. The player became
“extremely upset” and approached Saunders “in an aggressive manner,”
touching his chest against Saunders’s chest. The Miami Suns manager
did not intervene.
Saunders tried to retreat and took a step to his right, but the player
pushed Saunders. Before Saunders could take a second step, he felt a
sudden punch to his face, which sent him to the ground.
About two minutes elapsed between the time when Saunders made the
final strike call and when the player attacked Saunders on the field.
During this two-minute period, no agent from the Baseball Factory came
to Saunders’s aid. The police responded to the scene and arrested the
player for aggravated battery.
Saunders sued the Baseball Factory, the player’s parents, and the
Miami Suns for negligence. Count I of the amended complaint was against
the Baseball Factory. Saunders alleged that the baseball game was played
on a field “under the control, supervision and operation” of the Baseball
Factory. On the question of duty, Saunders alleged that the Baseball
Factory owed a duty to all the players and participants, including
Saunders, “to conduct a reasonably safe tournament by taking reasonable
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precautions to guard against and/or warn of the risk of reasonably
foreseeable injuries occurring during and at the conclusion of baseball
games.”
Saunders further alleged that the Baseball Factory adopted game rules
which prohibited players from having any physical contact with or
engaging in any physical action directed toward an umpire, including
charging an umpire. In addition, the rules provided that a coach who
attempted to prevent a fight or restore order was not in violation of the
rules.
Saunders alleged that the Baseball Factory breached its duties in
numerous ways, such as “causing and/or allowing” the player to strike
him and failing to properly supervise the activities. He claimed that as a
direct and proximate result of the Baseball Factory’s negligence, Saunders
was seriously injured.
The Baseball Factory moved to dismiss the amended complaint. At the
ensuing hearing, the trial court granted the motion to dismiss, ruling that
the Baseball Factory had no duty “to have people in place to . . . stop
typical recreational activity arguments that suddenly and without
explanation escalate[] by one person committing a crime.” The trial court
later entered a written order dismissing the amended complaint with
prejudice as to the Baseball Factory only, reasoning that “the incident
alleged in the Amended Complaint did not breach the requisite standard
of care, as the incident occurred during a typical recreational activity and
not an unusually dangerous activity such to impose liability as claimed by
Plaintiff.” 1 This appeal ensued.
Analysis
On appeal, Saunders argues that the trial court erred by granting the
Baseball Factory’s motion to dismiss, as the amended complaint stated a
claim for negligence. Saunders contends that the Baseball Factory owed
a duty of care to provide a reasonably safe baseball tournament for
participants and umpires. The Baseball Factory’s conduct created a
foreseeable zone of risk, Saunders argues, because it was “objectively
reasonable for the Baseball Factory to expect the danger of a physical
altercation between a player and umpire” during a competitive baseball
tournament, particularly where the Baseball Factory adopted rules that
prohibited aggressive actions toward umpires.
1The player’s parents were defaulted in the action, and Saunders’s claim against
the Miami Suns is still pending.
3
The standard of review of an order dismissing a complaint with
prejudice is de novo. Borrack v. Reed, 53 So. 3d 1253, 1255 (Fla. 4th DCA
2011).
To state a claim for negligence, the plaintiff must allege: (1) a duty
recognized by law; (2) breach of the duty; (3) proximate causation; and (4)
damages. Clay Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So. 2d 1182, 1185 (Fla.
2003).
Duty “is a minimal threshold legal requirement for opening the
courthouse doors[.]” McCain v. Fla. Power Corp., 593 So. 2d 500, 502 (Fla.
1992) (footnote omitted). “The duty element of negligence focuses on
whether the defendant’s conduct foreseeably created a broader ‘zone of
risk’ that poses a general threat of harm to others.” Id. “Where a
defendant’s conduct creates a foreseeable zone of risk, the law generally
will recognize a duty placed upon defendant either to lessen the risk or see
that sufficient precautions are taken to protect others from the harm that
the risk poses.” Kaisner v. Kolb, 543 So. 2d 732, 735 (Fla. 1989).
“[T]he zone of risk created by a defendant defines the scope of the
defendant’s legal duty and the scope of the zone of risk is in turn
determined by the foreseeability of a risk of harm to others.” Smith v. Fla.
Power & Light Co., 857 So. 2d 224, 229 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). “While a
written policy or manual may be instructive in determining whether the
alleged tortfeasor acted negligently in fulfilling an independently
established duty of care, it does not itself establish such a legal duty vis-
a-vis individual members of the public.” Pollock v. Fla. Dep’t of Highway
Patrol, 882 So. 2d 928, 937 (Fla. 2004).
“To determine whether the risk of injury to a plaintiff is foreseeable
under the concept of duty, courts must look at whether it was objectively
reasonable to expect the specific danger causing the plaintiff’s injury, not
simply whether it was within the realm of any conceivable possibility.”
Grieco v. Daiho Sangyo, Inc., 344 So. 3d 11, 23 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022). A
legal duty does not exist merely because the harm in question was
foreseeable—instead, the defendant’s conduct must “create” the risk.
Aguila v. Hilton, Inc., 878 So. 2d 392, 396 (Fla. 1st DCA 2004). In other
words, a duty requires one to be in a position to “control the risk.” Surloff
v. Regions Bank, 179 So. 3d 472, 476 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015).
The general rule is that a person “has no duty to take precautions to
protect another against criminal acts of third parties.” Gross v. Fam.
Servs. Agency, Inc., 716 So. 2d 337, 338 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998). “Normally
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the actor has much less reason to anticipate intentional misconduct than
he has to anticipate negligence.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B
cmt. d (Am. Law Inst. 1965). “This is true particularly where the
intentional conduct is a crime, since under ordinary circumstances it may
reasonably be assumed that no one will violate the criminal law.” Id.
“Even where there is a recognizable possibility of the intentional
interference, the possibility may be so slight, or there may be so slight a
risk of foreseeable harm to another as a result of the interference, that a
reasonable man in the position of the actor would disregard it.” Id.
“It is not possible to state definite rules as to when the actor is required
to take precautions against intentional or criminal misconduct.”
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B cmt. f (Am. Law Inst. 1965). As stated
in the Second Restatement:
Factors to be considered are the known character, past
conduct, and tendencies of the person whose intentional
conduct causes the harm, the temptation or opportunity
which the situation may afford him for such misconduct, the
gravity of the harm which may result, and the possibility that
some other person will assume the responsibility for
preventing the conduct or the harm, together with the burden
of the precautions which the actor would be required to take.
Id.
In an analogous case, albeit one involving unique policy concerns
involving governmental entities, we held that a city owed no duty to
supervise a typical recreational activity at a public park during low-use
hours, without some additional risk factor. See Jones v. City of Coral
Springs, 694 So. 2d 819, 820 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). Accordingly, we
affirmed a summary judgment in favor of the city where the plaintiff was
punched in the face during a pickup basketball game, as we did not “see
how the city could have, or should be expected to have prevented this
injury.” Id.Traditionally, the “analysis of a defendant’s liability in negligence for
the criminal acts of another links the existence of a legal duty to the
defendant’s special relationship to the injured party or to the defendant’s
ability to control some aspect of the criminal act.” Knight v. Merhige, 133
So. 3d 1140, 1144 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). One of the limited exceptions to
the general “no duty” rule is that a duty arises when the defendant has a
“special relationship” with the plaintiff. Id. at 1145.
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“[E]xamples of recognized special relationships include businesses
toward their customers, employers toward their employees, jailers toward
their prisoners, hospitals toward their patients, and schools toward their
pupils.” Id. (footnotes omitted). A special relationship typically arises in
narrow circumstances where the relationship places the defendant in a
superior position to control the risk, such as where the defendant has
substantial control over the plaintiff so as to deprive the plaintiff of his or
her normal opportunities for protection. See Restatement (Second) of Torts
§ 314A (Am. Law Inst. 1965) (an actor “who is required by law to take or
who voluntarily takes the custody of another under circumstances such
as to deprive the other of his normal opportunities for protection” has a
special relationship giving rise to duty to aid or protect).
“In the absence of a special relationship, another set of exceptions to
the general rule that there is no duty to prevent the misconduct of third
persons may apply.” T.W. v. Regal Trace, Ltd., 908 So. 2d 499, 503 (Fla.
4th DCA 2005). Such an exception can arise if the defendant is in actual
or constructive control of: (1) the instrumentality; (2) the premises on
which the tort was committed; or (3) the tortfeasor. Id.Here, we conclude that the Baseball Factory’s operation of the baseball
tournament did not create a foreseeable zone of risk that a physical
altercation would occur between a player and an umpire. 2 Saunders did
not allege that the player had a known history of violence or that any prior
incidents of violence had occurred at these tournaments.
Under the circumstances of this case, we fail to see how the Baseball
Factory could have been expected to prevent this injury. As the umpire of
the game, Saunders was in the best position to have anticipated the
punch, but he was unable to do so. Saunders’s counsel conceded below
that he was not suggesting the Baseball Factory was required to hire off-
duty police officers to be at the ready to break up any possible fight.
The question is whether it was objectively reasonable to expect the
danger causing Saunders’s injury, not whether it was within the realm of
any conceivable possibility. Foreseeability must mean something more
than awareness of the remote possibility that an athlete upset with a call
would attack an official. While emotions run high at a competitive youth
2 Although Saunders did not allege that he had a special relationship with the
Baseball Factory, he did allege that the Baseball Factory was in control of the
premises where the tort was committed. Thus, because Saunders alleged a
possible exception to the general “no duty” rule, our analysis of the duty question
focuses on foreseeability.
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baseball tournament, a player sucker punching the home plate umpire is
more of a unicorn event than a perfect game.
Requiring a tournament organizer to implement security measures for
a youth sporting event, absent a reason for the organizer to anticipate
violence, is an undue burden on the organizer when weighed against the
utility of the activity. We emphasize that other adults would have been
present on the field apart from the umpire—namely, the coaches of both
teams—so it would have been reasonable for the Baseball Factory to expect
that some other adult could have intervened to prevent the harm in the
unlikely event of an altercation between a player and an umpire. 3 Thus,
we conclude that the alleged facts did not give rise to a duty on the part of
the Baseball Factory to have additional personnel on the field to protect
Saunders from a player’s attack that could not reasonably have been
anticipated in advance of the game. This was not a situation where the
organizer was on notice of the potential of violence from teams, players, or
fans.
We disagree with Saunders’s argument that the harm in this case was
foreseeable because the Baseball Factory adopted rules prohibiting players
from having any physical contact with umpires. Under Pollock, the
Baseball Factory’s tournament rules do not themselves create a duty.
Incidents of athletes attacking officials in organized sports appear to be
rare, as confirmed by the scarcity of reported case law on this topic.
We suspect that one of the reasons such violence rarely occurs is
because there are rules in place to prohibit such conduct, punishing it
with consequences such as ejections, suspensions, and, at the
professional level, with fines. Just as it may reasonably be assumed under
ordinary circumstances that no one will violate the criminal law, so too
may it reasonably be assumed under ordinary circumstances that players
will not violate game rules prohibiting violence against officials.
We conclude that an operator of a youth baseball tournament does not
have a duty to provide supervision of the participants and the umpire,
absent notice of a player’s propensity for violence or of some additional
risk factor that would give the operator an objectively reasonable basis for
having measures in place in anticipation of possible violence at the game.
Because the amended complaint did not allege facts demonstrating
that the Baseball Factory created a foreseeable zone of risk that a player
would attack the umpire, we affirm the dismissal.
3 We express no view as to whether the Miami Suns owed a duty to Saunders.
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Affirmed.
MAY and FORST, JJ., concur.
* * *
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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