## Facts

- John Coomer attended a Kansas City Royals home game at Kauffman Stadium and sat several rows behind the visiting team’s dugout.
- During a between-innings promotion, the team’s mascot, “Sluggerrr,” tossed or launched hotdogs to fans.
- Coomer alleged he was looking at the scoreboard when a hotdog thrown by Sluggerrr struck him in the eye.
- Coomer claimed severe eye injuries, including a detached retina and cataract, requiring surgery and leaving impaired vision.
- Coomer sued the Kansas City Royals Baseball Corporation, seeking to hold it vicariously liable for the mascot’s alleged negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether the risk of being injured by a mascot’s hotdog toss is an inherent risk of attending a professional baseball game that a spectator assumes by attending.
2. Whether classification of a risk as “inherent” in watching a sporting event is a question of law for the court or a question of fact for the jury.
3. Whether submitting an inherent-risk/assumption-of-risk instruction to the jury warranted vacating the defense verdict and remanding for further proceedings.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Missouri vacated the judgment and remanded.
- The court held that whether a risk is inherent in watching a sporting event is a question of law for the court, not a question of fact for the jury.
- The court held that injury from a mascot’s hotdog toss is not an inherent risk of watching the Royals play baseball.
- Because the jury was instructed to decide the inherent-risk issue, the instructions introduced an improper consideration into the negligence analysis, requiring a new trial.
- The court indicated the evidence permitted submitting comparative fault to the jury on retrial and approved limiting the plaintiff to a single liability theory for vicarious responsibility for the mascot’s conduct.

## Legal Principles

- Implied primary assumption of risk operates within the negligence duty inquiry; if a risk is inherent in the sport, the defendant owes no duty to protect spectators from that risk.
- Determining whether a risk is inherent in spectating at a sporting event is a legal question for the court.
- Risks integral to the sport itself (e.g., balls or bats entering the stands in baseball) may be inherent; risks from ancillary promotional activities that can be reduced or avoided without changing the sport’s nature are not inherent.
- When the risk is not inherent, the claim proceeds under ordinary negligence principles, with comparative fault available to apportion responsibility.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a mascot’s hotdog toss is not an inherent risk of attending a baseball game and that inherent-risk classification is for the court to decide; the erroneous instruction required vacating the defense verdict and remanding for further proceedings under ordinary negligence and comparative fault principles.


Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp., 437 S.W.3d 184 (Mo. 2014) (en banc)