## Facts

- Spencer James Ludman, a Muscatine High School baseball player, played in a summer game at Davenport Assumption High School on July 7, 2011.
- The visiting team’s dugout was on the first-base side, partially shielded by a fence across most of the dugout’s front, but with an opening at each end for entry and exit.
- During the top of the fifth inning, Ludman stood in the dugout’s south opening, away from home plate, while preparing to return to the field.
- A right-handed batter hit a line-drive foul ball that entered the dugout through the south opening and struck Ludman in the head.
- Ludman suffered a fractured skull and other serious injuries requiring hospitalization and therapy.
- Ludman sued the school on a premises-liability theory, alleging negligent failure to provide adequate protective screening or barriers for the dugout openings.
- A jury found the school negligent and allocated 30% comparative fault to Ludman; judgment was entered on the verdict.
- The school appealed; Ludman cross-appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the “contact-sports exception” eliminated or limited the school’s duty of reasonable care to a player injured by a foul ball while in an unprotected area of the dugout.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding evidence of custom regarding dugout protection at comparable schools.
3. Whether the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on Ludman’s alleged failure to maintain a proper lookout as a comparative-fault specification.

## Decision

- The court held the school, as a land possessor, owed Ludman a duty of reasonable care under premises-liability principles.
- The court declined to apply the contact-sports exception to bar the claim, treating it as a doctrine directed at liability among co-participants rather than facility owners for premises conditions.
- The court found substantial evidence supporting submission of negligence to the jury.
- The court reversed the judgment and remanded for a new trial because:
  - the trial court improperly excluded relevant evidence of custom concerning dugout design and protection at comparable facilities; and
  - the trial court prejudicially failed to instruct on Ludman’s alleged failure to maintain a proper lookout as part of comparative fault.

## Legal Principles

- A land possessor generally owes entrants a duty of reasonable care regarding conditions on the premises, including foreseeable risks arising from facility design.
- The contact-sports exception does not categorically preclude premises-liability claims against facility owners based on alleged negligent design or maintenance.
- Evidence of custom or common practice may be admissible as probative (though not conclusive) of reasonable care and the standard of conduct in negligence cases.
- A comparative-fault instruction must submit supported theories of the plaintiff’s negligent conduct (including failure to maintain a proper lookout) when evidence would allow a reasonable jury to find fault on that basis.

## Conclusion

The court recognized a premises-liability duty owed by the school to the player and found the negligence evidence sufficient, but it ordered a new trial because the jury was denied relevant custom evidence and was not instructed on a supported comparative-fault theory that Ludman failed to maintain a proper lookout.


Ludman v. Davenport Assumption High Sch., 895 N.W.2d 902 (Iowa 2017)