## Facts

- Wilmington Park, Inc. owned and operated a baseball park at the southwest corner of Thirtieth Street and Governor Printz Boulevard in Wilmington, Delaware, leasing it for games.
- During a game between two visiting professional teams, Ms. Salevan walked eastbound on the public sidewalk along the south side of East Thirtieth Street with family members.
- A foul ball left the park and struck Ms. Salevan in the back near the area opposite the end of the bleachers and the beginning of a lower fence section.
- The park’s physical safeguards included a grandstand about 40 feet high topped with a 10-foot wire screen, 20-foot bleachers along left field, and a fence parallel to Thirtieth Street located about 40 feet from the sidewalk, with some sections about 10 feet high.
- Evidence showed foul balls regularly left the park, including multiple balls per game reaching Thirtieth Street, and the defendant knew or should have known of this recurring condition.
- Ms. Salevan sued the park owner for negligence seeking damages for personal injuries; the case was tried to the court without a jury.

## Issues

1. Whether a ballpark owner owes a duty of reasonable care to protect travelers on an adjacent public sidewalk from foul balls leaving the premises.
2. Whether repeated prior incidents of foul balls reaching the street made the risk foreseeable such that existing fences and screens were unreasonable precautions.
3. Whether the defendant’s failure to take additional protective measures constituted negligence.

## Decision

- The court found Wilmington Park, Inc. negligent and liable for Ms. Salevan’s injuries.
- The court held the defendant owed a duty to exercise reasonable care in using its land to prevent injury to persons lawfully traveling on adjacent public ways.
- The court concluded the defendant’s existing precautions were insufficient in light of the known, recurring escape of foul balls to the street.
- Judgment was entered for the plaintiff for $2,500 in damages.

## Legal Principles

- A landowner who uses land in a manner that creates a foreseeable risk of physical harm beyond the property line must exercise reasonable care to protect persons outside the premises.
- Operating a baseball park is an artificial use of land that can generate foreseeable off-premises hazards, including foul balls leaving the grounds.
- Foreseeability may be shown by prior experience indicating that objects frequently escape the premises and reach adjacent public ways.
- Reasonable care is fact-dependent and may require additional precautions when experience shows existing barriers do not adequately reduce a known danger.
- Liability rests on negligence for failing to take reasonable precautions, not on treating the landowner as an insurer of public safety.

## Conclusion

The court imposed negligence liability on a ballpark owner for injuries to a sidewalk pedestrian struck by a foul ball, holding that repeated prior escapes made the off-premises risk foreseeable and required reasonable additional precautions beyond the existing fencing and screening.


Salevan v. Wilmington Park, Inc., 72 A.2d 239 (Del. Super. Ct. 1950)