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Abstract

When fans attend sporting events, they usually do so at their own peril. Fans are expected to assume the known risks of flying baseballs, hockey pucks, or footballs. In fact, Judge Cardozo once summarized this situation by saying, “the timorous may stay at home.” While sports fans generally assume the risk of liability from acts by players that send balls flying into the stands, the question arises as to the liability of stadium owners for injuries caused when one fan injures another fan after a player has sent a ball into the crowd. In Hayden v. University of Notre Dame, the Indiana Court of Appeals found that one fan criminally injured another fan during a scramble for a loose football that had flown into the crowd after a field goal attempt. The court examined recent Indiana case law that articulated the test for determining whether a landowner’s duty is to its invitees extends to protecting them against the criminal acts of third parties. This Note evaluates the options the court faced, the potential misapplication of the law to the facts, and the dangerous policy implication that the court may have created in the process.

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