Car hit by golf ball, liability?

[Spineshank]

how the F did you hit a house? I'm a terrible golfer and never managed to hit anything worse than someone else' cart.

Theres a local course that the houses are a good 15 feet from the fairway. Its crazy.

 

[Newbian]

How the hell could you hold the golf course responsible? Personal responsibility FAIL.

As other people have said and various lawsuits that have happened, if golf balls are getting hit over in a public road that often they are at fault for lack of safety equipment.

 

[spidey07]

As other people have said and various lawsuits that have happened, if golf balls are getting hit over in a public road that often they are at fault for lack of safety equipment.

WTF!

Who hit the golf ball? The course? As long as the course puts up reasonable means then that's all that is necessary. But a course near me has a strong 90 degree dog leg left where if I hit a driver, that ball IS going to go into a 45 MPH road. It's my responsibility to not hit driver and not hit the ball that far. There's another course where if I pull it 40 yards left, it's flight will be on a 55 MPH two lane country road.

I am responsible for my own actions, don't blame the course. Whatever nets or trees the course puts up, I can get over with bad decisions and bad shots.

If anything if it's a "public safety" problem then the owner of the road should put up such measures to "protect the public". Funny thing? The courses I play where there is even a remote chance in hell of ball flying on a road are all...wait for it....

PUBLIC MUNIcipal courses, owned and operated by the city/county.

 

[Whisper]

WTF!

Who hit the golf ball? The course? As long as the course puts up reasonable means then that's all that is necessary. But a course near me has a strong 90 degree dog leg left where if I hit a driver, that ball IS going to go into a 45 MPH road. It's my responsibility to not hit driver and not hit the ball that far. There's another course where if I pull it 40 yards left, it's flight will be on a 55 MPH two lane country road.

I am responsible for my own actions, don't blame the course. Whatever nets or trees the course puts up, I can get over with bad decisions and bad shots.

If anything if it's a "public safety" problem then the owner of the road should put up such measures to "protect the public". Funny thing? The courses I play where there is even a remote chance in hell of ball flying on a road are all...wait for it....

PUBLIC MUNIcipal courses, owned and operated by the city/county.

I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened more often, given that the course (and the golf cart paths) are literally lined up right beside the road. I can see players walking from hole to hole at times, and there's no netting or fencing along any portion of the road/course border.

That being said, I still have no idea if it's the course's fault above and beyond any blame that could be attributed to the individual golfer. It's a city-owned course as far as I know, so I'll give them a call/email to see what they have to say.

 

[PottedMeat]

Theres a local course that the houses are a good 15 feet from the fairway. Its crazy.

there's a fairly old development here that's pretty much part of the golf course. ~$200-500K houses on ~1/2 acre lots with those little roads for golf carts ( don't know what they're called ) passing between properties and through regular roads.

 

[DominionSeraph]

WTF!

Who hit the golf ball? The course? As long as the course puts up reasonable means then that's all that is necessary. But a course near me has a strong 90 degree dog leg left where if I hit a driver, that ball IS going to go into a 45 MPH road. It's my responsibility to not hit driver and not hit the ball that far. There's another course where if I pull it 40 yards left, it's flight will be on a 55 MPH two lane country road.

I am responsible for my own actions, don't blame the course. Whatever nets or trees the course puts up, I can get over with bad decisions and bad shots.

The government can hold the course responsible as the organizer of the activity.

 

[spidey07]

there's a fairly old development here that's pretty much part of the golf course. ~$200-500K houses on ~1/2 acre lots with those little roads for golf carts ( don't know what they're called ) passing between properties and through regular roads.

Cart path. Carts have right of way when crossing the main road BTW.

 

[spidey07]

The government can hold the course responsible as the organizer of the activity.

But the course is owned and operated by the Government.

 

[Imp]

Golfer and/or course would be responsible.

Golfer was shitty and personally damaged your car.

Course is probably responsible because it should be common knowledge to a golfer that balls fly hundreds of yards across and high up in the air. You build a golf course, it's reasonably foreseeable that balls will fly out. A 200 ft fence is obviously unreasonable, so 'reasonable' risk mitigation would be to put some signs up around the facility. It's a golf ball, so damage should be minimal, and the place must have some insurance.

FYI, you could probably take the city to court too for not doing their part to keep the public right of way safe if there were no signs.

 

[BrokenVisage]

FORE!

 

[Zenmervolt]

Wrong. IANAL, but even I know that this would be dependent upon local laws, the judge's mood that day, and how connected the golfer is. 😀

If anyone damages anything by accident, they are responsible for it unless a law states differently. If they damage something on purpose, that is criminal and totally different. I can guarantee there are not many (if any) localities in the US that state golfers are exempt from standard personal responsibility laws.

Yup, from that answer it's quite obvious that you're not a lawyer.

By and large, courts have adopted the idea of assumed risk for situations where a person lives by a golf course (refusing to hold golfers liable for wayward shots provided there was sufficient attempt to warn, e.g. the golfer yelling "fore"), so there's at least one immediate exception to your idea that, "If anyone damages anything by accident, they are responsible for it". Granted, operating a vehicle on a public road is different than voluntarily purchasing or occupying a house next to a golf course, but that still doesn't change the overall standard.

The standard is simply, "due care under the circumstances". Unless the OP can somehow prove that the golfer was negligent in the manner in which he hit the ball (e.g. hitting a driver for a 60-yard shot near the edge of the course, intentionally aiming for the road, etc.), there are precious few legal avenues available for recovery against the golfer himself.

However, there may be a path for recovery against the course itself, (though this is still iffy) on the grounds that the course failed to exercise due care by putting up netting. This is not to say that the course is responsible for the golfer's actions, but rather that the course is responsible for its own inaction. There are various methods used to determine just what sort of precautions constitute "due care" in this sort of scenario though and if the course can show, for example, that installing netting would cost $1,000,000 and only prevent $1,000 in expected damages, the course would probably not be held liable.

That said, for practical matters, the OP has a decent chance that a simple "nasty-gram" sent to the golf course will get his dent repair paid for. The course won't want to fight it and their insurance will cover it, so that's probably the way to go if he's set on recovery.

Disclaimer: I am a law student. I have not yet passed the bar and I am not currently licensed to practice in any state. This post is for informational purposes only and is not an attempt to solicit business. Any information provided in this post should be confirmed by an attorney licensed to practice in your state.

ZV

 

[Imp]

Disclaimer: I am a law student. I have not yet passed the bar and I am not currently licensed to practice in any state. This post is for informational purposes only and is not an attempt to solicit business. Any information provided in this post should be confirmed by an attorney licensed to practice in your state.

Been seeing these more often lately. Is that really necessary?

I'm nowhere close to being a law-anything, but from a contracts course I'm taking now, an anonymous internet forum really shouldn't imply any duty of care. Oh wait, I just remembered that I cover my ass all the time by adding "probably".

 

[Zenmervolt]

Been seeing these more often lately. Is that really necessary?

Considering that there have been cases where merely giving offhand advice (e.g. at a party) has been construed as establishing an attorney-client relationship sufficient to allow the person receiving the advice to successfully sue for malpractice, yes, it's really necessary.

ZV

 

[Ronstang]

The golf course on campus at the University I attended had a ninth hole that was bordered on the right by a large boulevard. The course was elevated with a sidewalk and parking all along the sidewalk. It was a recipe for carnage. I used to play there a decent amount and witnessed many a tee shot hit oncoming cars. The best one though was when I was playing with some random guy to fill up the foursome and after his first tee shot hit a car he proceeded to send his second shot into another car. I myself never sent one into the street on that hole.