An ABC7 I-Team Investigation
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago baseball owners are well protected from any foul ball backlash by a state law that prohibits lawsuits by injured fans.
Every season in major league parks more than 1,700 fans are in the line of fire, hurt by batted balls or sometimes by broken bats. Beyond the netting at Wrigley Field and Cellular Field thousands of fans sit unprotected as they watch games while the Cubs and Sox team owners are well protected, legally speaking, by an obscure law that prohibits them from being sued by any fan injured from a foul ball.
Friday night in Detroit a was woman hit in the face. Another ball to a fan's face happened last month in Boston. A bat flew into the Red Sox stands in June. In April, it was Wrigley Field when a flying bat hit a Cubs fan.
The most recent incident was also at Wrigley; Sunday's Cubs game when a foul ball hit a woman in the head as she sat along the first base line so hard it the ball bounced back onto the field.
"I knew whoever got hit was probably hurting pretty good. We're all very sensitive to that," said Cubs manager Joe Madden.
Sensitive to it, but in Illinois not liable for it. This woman hurt over the weekend, and anyone else injured or even killed by a foul ball, cannot file a lawsuit for damages.
In 1993 the state General Assembly passed legislation backed by the Cubs and Sox, the first foul ball law in the U.S. that protects team owners.
According to this Illinois Baseball Facility Liability Act, the owner or operator of any baseball facility in the state shall not be liable for any fan injury, unless that person is seated behind a screen or the backstop is defective.
That means the majority of baseball fans in Illinois who sit outside the protected areas, have no legal recourse if they are hurt from a foul ball or flying bat.
The purpose of the Illinois statute was to "shift expense for injuries to spectators themselves," changing liability that the courts had been moving toward for several decades.
Although Illinois has a specific law protecting team owners, the courts have said that stadium owners generally fulfill their safety duties by providing some protected seating behind home plate. Baseball fans have always been preoccupied by peanuts and cotton candy or even marking their own scorecards. But now with the added distraction of phones and social media, getting out of the way may be even more complicated.