Municipality Held Not Liable for Fall over Bench at its Baseball Field

The plaintiff Anthony Victor filed suit against the Borough of Red Bank and its Board of Education after he tripped over the dugout bench that had been moved behind the bleachers of the municipality’s baseball field. The plaintiff had been at the Red Bank Count Basie Field to watch his grandson’s baseball game. The issue in Victor v. Borough of Red Bank, A-1393-17T2 (App. Div. Sept. 27, 2018) was whether the placement of the bench behind the bleachers constituted a dangerous condition of public property so as to impose liability on the defendants.

The bench had been moved between fields to provide players a place to sit during games and practices. The bench was about 21 feet long and was held up by 4 vertical supports which ended in a perpendicular metal bar 2 inches in diameter. Each of the bars extended 15 inches beyond the back of the bench. The bench had been placed behind some metal bleachers on a concrete pad next to one of the fields. While it was not placed in an actual walkway, the defendants did concede that some spectators cut across the pad to reach the batting cages.

The plaintiff was walking behind the bleachers across the pad to reach the batting cages and another field when his right foot tripped on the last support. He did not see the bench’s metal supports as he walked because he was not looking down.

The defendants filed for a summary judgment, contending that the plaintiff did not demonstrate that the property was in a dangerous condition and the placement of the bench was not palpably reasonable. The trial judge concluded that the bench was not a dangerous condition to those who made proper observations and granted the motion to dismiss the case.

Pursuant to the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:4-2, for a public entity to be held liable for a dangerous condition of its property, the plaintiff must establish that the property “was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the injury was proximately caused by the dangerous condition, that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred.” Further, the plaintiff must prove that the dangerous condition was created by an employee of the public entity or that the public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition.

Even if a plaintiff is able to prove that there existed a dangerous condition of public property that caused the injury, the statute further provides that no liability would be imposed “upon a public entity for a dangerous condition of its public property if the action the entity took to protect against the condition or the failure to take such action was not palpably unreasonable.”

The defendants did not dispute that the plaintiff was injured by tripping over the bench. However, they focused on whether the concrete pad, where spectators were known to walk, was in a dangerous condition and, if so, whether the failure to correct it was palpably reasonable. The Appellate Division noted that the statute defined “dangerous condition” as “a condition of property that creates a substantial risk of injury when such property is used with due care in a manner in which it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used.”        

The Court found that the trial court was correct that the plaintiff failed to establish that the Borough’s placement of the bench behind the bleachers rendered the concrete pad in a dangerous condition to a person who foreseeably would walk behind the bleachers to access the batting cages or one of the other fields. Plaintiff had admitted that there was nothing obscuring his view of either the bench or the bleachers. He tripped over one of the bench supports after walking almost the entire length of the bench.            

Because it found that the plaintiff did not use “due care” in the foreseeable use of the property, the Appellate Division agreed that the property was not in a dangerous condition. Further, it found that the plaintiff had presented no proof that the placement of the bench or the failure to move it was “palpably unreasonable,” which term is defined as “manifest and obvious that no prudent person would approve of its course of action or inaction.” The Court also noted that if this case had been brought against a private owner without statutory immunities, the obvious nature of the bench and its supports would make it difficult for the plaintiff to recover against an owner. Hence, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court decision, dismissing the case against the defendants.