Estes v. Tripson

932 P.2d 1364, 188 Ariz. 93, 237 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 1997 Ariz. App. LEXIS 24
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedFebruary 25, 1997
Docket1 CA-CV 95-0408
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 932 P.2d 1364 (Estes v. Tripson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estes v. Tripson, 932 P.2d 1364, 188 Ariz. 93, 237 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 1997 Ariz. App. LEXIS 24 (Ark. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinions

OPINION

FIDEL, Presiding Judge.

This personal injury suit arises from an accidental injury in a company softball game. Plaintiff Terrilyn Estes was catching for one team; Defendant Ronald Tripson was running the bases for the other; as Tripson ran toward home plate, Estes awaited a throw to tag him out. Crossing the plate, Tripson stepped on Estes’s outstretched leg, fracturing her tibia and fibula. Tripson did not slide or deliberately collide with Estes. Nor did he recklessly or intentionally step on her leg. Estes claims, however, that Tripson had the time and opportunity to avoid her leg and was negligent because he failed to do so.

The trial court awarded summary judgment to Tripson, finding that, even if Tripson was negligent, simple negligence is not actionable among participants in recreational sports. We affirm summary judgment for a different reason.

Some authorities have held, as the trial court held, that only reckless or intentional torts are actionable among participants in sports. This approach, however, is constitutionally problematic in Arizona, as it is grounded, explicitly or implicitly, in a judicial application of assumption of risk as a dispositive negligence defense. See Mazzeo v. City of Sebastian, 550 So.2d 1113, 1116 (Fla.1989) (a voluntary participant in sports assumes certain risks inherent to that sport and relieves a co-participant of liability for injurious contact within those risks); Novak v. Lamar Ins. Co., 488 So.2d 739, 740 (La.Ct.App.1986) (“A participant in a game or sport assumes all of the risks incidental to that particular activity which are obvious and foreseeable.”); Marchetti v. Kalish, 53 Ohio St.3d 95, 559 N.E.2d 699, 703-04 (1990) (participants in sports activities assume the ordinary risks of such activities including the negligence of co-participants).

To judicially apply assumption of risk as a dispositive defense in Arizona would violate article 18, section 5 of the Arizona Constitution, which provides:

The defense of contributory negligence or of assumption of risk shall, in all cases whatsoever, be a question of fact and shall, at all times, be left to the jury.1

Under article 18, section 5, the jury is “sole arbiter of the existence or non-existence” of contributory negligence and assumption of risk, and alone decides whether to apply those doctrines or not as it sees fit. Heimke [95]*95v. Munoz, 106 Ariz. 26, 28, 470 P.2d 107, 109 (1970); see Brannigan v. Raybuck, 136 Ariz. 513, 518, 667 P.2d 213, 218 (1983). It is constitutionally forbidden for Arizona courts to enter summary judgment for a defendant on the ground of assumption of risk. Brannigan, 136 Ariz. at 518, 667 P.2d at 218.

Some courts have attempted, after adopting comparative negligence, to retain assumption of risk as a complete sports injury defense by recasting it as a no-duty rule. See Knight v. Jewett, 3 Cal.4th 296, 11 Cal. Rptr.2d 2, 834 P.2d 696, 706 (1992) (assumption of risk frames the duty of care owed by a participant in a sporting event); Turcotte v. Fell, 68 N.Y.2d 432, 510 N.Y.S.2d 49, 502 N.E.2d 964, 968 (1986) (assumption of risk is a measure of a fellow participant’s duty of care).

Such a reformulation, however, would not escape the constitutional constraints of article 18, section 5. In Schwab v. Matley, 164 Ariz. 421, 793 P.2d 1088 (1990), our supreme court struck down a statute that attempted to relieve tavernkeepers of dram shop liability to persons who knowingly remain in the danger zone of an intoxicated tavern patron. The statute violated article 18, section 5 in attempting to establish contributory negligence or assumption of risk as a complete defense as a matter of law. Id. at 424, 793 P.2d at 1091. Further, the court held that it would not reheve this constitutional impediment to construe the statute as one that “deals with the question of duty and simply declares that the tavernkeeper has no duty toward one who knowingly accompanies the patron.” Id. A no-duty rule of that kind, according to the court, was merely a “shorthand” application of contributory negligence or assumption of risk. Id. The court explained:

Assumption of the risk as a defense ... always “rest[ed] upon the idea that the defendant [was] relieved of any duty toward the plaintiff.” [W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 65, at 451 (5th ed.1984).] The very basis of the doctrine was that the plaintiff had expressly or impliedly consented to the defendant’s negligent conduct, “the legal result [being] that the defendant is simply relieved of the duty which would otherwise exist.” Id. at § 68, at 481.

Id.; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 496A, cmt. c (1965) (when a plaintiff is held to have assumed the risk by “entering] voluntarily into some relation with the defendant which he knows to involve the risk, ... the legal result is that the defendant is relieved of his duty to the plaintiff.”) According to Schwab, whether assumption of risk is asserted as a defense or recast as a no-duty rule, it remains subject to article 18, section 5. See Schwab, 164 Ariz. at 424, 793 P.2d at 1091.2

This does not mean, however, that we are constitutionally obliged to send this case forward to a jury. We may assume for the purpose of disposition that Tripson owed Estes the common duty “to act reasonably in the light of foreseeable and unreasonable risks.” Rogers v. Retrum, 170 Ariz. 399, 400, 825 P.2d 20, 21 (App.1991). The question follows whether there is evidence from which a jury could reasonably conclude that Trip-son violated such a duty. As we stated in Rogers:

Not every foreseeable risk is an unreasonable risk. It does not suffice to establish liability to prove (a) that defendant owed plaintiff a duty of reasonable care; (b) that an act or omission of defendant was a contributing cause of injury to plaintiff; and (c) that the risk of injury should have been foreseeable to defendant. The question whether the risk was unreasonable remains.

170 Ariz. at 402, 825 P.2d at 23.

Whether a risk is unreasonable depends substantially on the context. In a recent softball injury ease, the Supreme Court of New Jersey examined the context of [96]*96the risks that participants face in recreational sports:

In many recreational sports, softball included, some amount of physical contact is expected. Physical contact is an inherent or integral part of the game in many sports. The degree of physical contact allowed varies from sport to sport and even from one group of players to another. In addition, the physicality of sports is accompanied by a high level of emotional intensity [, which also varies] from sport to sport and from game to game.

Crawn v. Campo, 136 N.J.

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Estes v. Tripson
932 P.2d 1364 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 1997)

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Bluebook (online)
932 P.2d 1364, 188 Ariz. 93, 237 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 18, 1997 Ariz. App. LEXIS 24, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estes-v-tripson-arizctapp-1997.