## Facts

- After a Little League All-Star playoff game between Lumberton and Amelia teams, an altercation occurred in a parking lot after the game ended.
- Lumberton players Larry Primrose II and Chad Hampshire alleged that Amelia players rushed them with bats and other objects and struck members of the Lumberton team.
- Primrose II allegedly suffered a knee injury; Hampshire allegedly suffered a head injury and concussion requiring medical treatment.
- The players’ parents sued Amelia Little League, alleging the organization failed to reasonably supervise and control Amelia players and failed to prevent the assault.
- Plaintiffs asserted negligence-based claims (including negligence and gross negligence) and also alleged malice and fraud-type theories.
- The trial court consolidated the suits and granted Amelia Little League’s motion for summary judgment on all claims.

## Issues

1. Whether Amelia Little League owed a legal duty to protect opposing players from intentional or criminal acts committed by Amelia players after a game.
2. Whether a “special relationship,” foreseeability, or the league’s ability/right to control players created a duty to prevent the post-game assault.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper because the league negated an essential element of plaintiffs’ claims as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed summary judgment for Amelia Little League.
- The court held the league owed no duty to protect the Lumberton players from the post-game assault by Amelia players.
- The court rejected the claim that the league’s relationship with its players qualified as a duty-creating “special relationship” under Texas law.
- Because duty was absent as a matter of law, plaintiffs’ negligence and gross-negligence theories failed, making summary judgment appropriate.

## Legal Principles

- Under Texas negligence law, duty is a threshold legal question; without duty, negligence-based claims fail.
- As a general rule, a defendant has no duty to control third parties or protect others from third-party criminal acts absent a recognized duty-creating relationship or other narrow circumstances.
- A duty to control another’s conduct typically requires both a recognized relationship and a right and ability to control the actor at the time of the complained-of conduct.
- Foreseeability, by itself, does not create a duty where Texas law does not recognize a duty-creating relationship.
- A defendant is entitled to summary judgment by disproving at least one essential element of each claim; negating duty defeats negligence-based causes of action.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed summary judgment because Texas law did not recognize a duty requiring a youth baseball league to protect opposing players from a spontaneous, post-game parking-lot assault committed by its players, absent a recognized special relationship and a relevant right of control at the time of the incident.


Primrose v. Amelia Little League, 990 S.W.2d 819 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 1999)