TORTS-ASSUMPTION OF RISK-FLYING PUCKS AND THE ICE HOCKEY SPECTATOR

Plaintiff and her husband attended an ice hockey game being sponsored by the defendant. Both testified that they knew nothing about the game. They asked for the \u27\u27best seats in the house and were seated in the front row of an unprotected section, immediately adjacent to the ice and behind a low wooden wall. During the progress of the game, plaintiff was struck and injured by a puck driven from the ice. Defendant had furnished screened areas, which were unfilled at the time; he had prominently displayed many large placards warning of the danger of flying pucks and advising of the availability of screened seats on request, and he had caused loud-speaker warnings of the danger of pucks to be made. Plaintiff testified that they neither saw nor heard these warnings. Defendant was precluded from showing the practices of other places in safeguarding ice hockey rinks. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff. On appeal, held, new trial granted on all issues. Defendant was prejudiced by excluding his offered evidence, and the inadequate damages awarded should be retried. However, it was a \u27proper question of fact for the jury as, it cannot be held as a matter of law, that the general public has, at this particular date, become so familiar with the hazards of this sport and of the actual appreciation of the seriousness of the risk as to bring them within the \u27common knowledge\u27 rule and under the doctrine of assumption of risk. Shurman v. Fresno Ice Rink, Inc., (Cal. App. 1949) 205 P. (2d) 77