Information from the County Attorney's Office
By Steven J. Franzen, Campbell County Attorney
I thought golfer liability would be an interesting and helpful topic considering that most golfers have almost been hit by a golf ball or almost hit someone else with a golf shot. To my surprise, while researching this issue I discovered that there were very few published court decisions concerning personal injury from errant golf balls. A 1932 case out of Jefferson County dealt with a caddy that suffered serious and permanent head, nervous system, other bodily injury and resulting in epileptic fits after being struck in the head by a tee shot from one of the foursome that he and three others were caddies for. The caddies were standing to the left between the tee box and the green watching the drives of the four players when the one player hooked his drive into the caddies. The other caddies ducked and were not hit. The player who hit the ball did not yell “Fore” to warn the caddies because they were already watching his drive and he assumed all the caddies saw the ball coming towards them. The Court dismissed the case and found that the player was not responsible to warn the caddy by yelling “Fore” because the caddy already knew the player was hitting his drive and was in fact watching the drive.
However, in another case a golfer was held liable to a caddy for another foursome that suffered serious head injuries when struck by a drive that sliced into the next fairway. That court held that the player was under a duty to warn the caddy and had failed to do so by not hollering “Fore” or giving some other warning.
In a 1965 case reported out of Lexington, a jury awarded $25,000 against the Lexington Country Club, but nothing against the driver of a golf ball, after a lady was struck while a passenger in an automobile crossing a fairway and road leading to the Country Club. The injured person lost an eye when struck by the golf ball. The Court felt that the County Club should have provided some warnings to automobiles or taken some other precautions to try to protect automobile passengers driving through the golf course.
The above noted cases and others basically indicate that personal injury situations from golf balls are governed by ordinary negligence principles. Negligence is considered a breach of a duty owed to another person by reason of a relationship existing or the circumstances presented. The driver of a golf ball has a duty to exercise ordinary care for the safety of persons reasonably within his range of danger. Also, the driver of a golf ball must give notice to those dangerously situated who are unaware of his intention to drive the ball.
Applying those principles to us everyday golf hackers, certainly when driving the ball from the tee, a player should make sure that everyone that could be struck by the tee shot around the tee box is warned in case the player toes or heels a ball. Also, a player must yell “Fore” or otherwise warn anyone in the path of the ball after it is hit. This would certainly include those in your own fairway or adjoining fairways If you hit an errant ball and are not sure if someone is located where you hit the ball, it is certainly better practice to yell “Fore” than not yell and have someone injured.
Many golf courses have “blind tee shots” where the player cannot see whether the foursome in front has proceeded far enough to be out of danger. It is the responsibility of the player driving the ball to make sure that the other players are out of range before hitting the ball. Some courses have bells or other warning devices whereby players can signal the golfers behind them that they have cleared the area. If there is no such warning device, the player must make sure that the group in front of them has cleared the fairway either by waiting an additional period of time or driving up to look and make sure that the fairway is clear.
As mentioned above, a golfer is not negligent because of hitting a bad shot, but can be held negligent if other players, caddies, or pedestrians are not warned of the bad shot. Also, if a person is playing golf while drunk and not playing according to accepted golf rules or in accordance with normal methods of making a shot, he could be found negligent for the bad shot itself as well as for any failure to warn of the bad shot.
If you have any topics you would like to have covered in this column, please contact my office by e-mail at countyattorney@campbellcountyky.org, by phone at 491-7700 or by regular mail addressed to 319 York Street, Newport, Kentucky 41071