In Coomer v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp., 437 S.W.3d 184 (Mo. 2014), the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the “baseball rule” shielding teams from spectator-injury claims does not cover a fan hit in the face by a hot dog thrown by the team mascot. Getting struck by a foul ball is an inherent risk of watching baseball. Getting hit by Sluggerrr’s between-innings hot dog toss, the court held, is not.
What Happened at Kauffman Stadium
On September 8, 2009, John Coomer was watching the Royals at Kauffman Stadium when the mascot Sluggerrr began the team’s regular between-innings Hotdog Launch. The promotion had two parts. Sluggerrr used an air-powered gun to shoot foil-wrapped hot dogs from the roof of the visitors’ dugout to fans seated farther back, then hand-tossed hot dogs to closer fans while assistants reloaded the gun. His throwing style varied. Sometimes underhand, sometimes overhand, sometimes behind the back.1Justia Law. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
Coomer testified that he saw Sluggerrr turn away from the crowd as if preparing for a behind-the-back throw. At that moment, Coomer turned to check the scoreboard. He never saw the hot dog leave Sluggerrr’s hand. A split second later something hit him in the face with what he described as “pretty forceful” impact. He was diagnosed with a detached retina and later developed a traumatic cataract in the same eye, requiring two surgeries.1Justia Law. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
Coomer sued the Royals for negligence. Evidence at trial showed the team had given Sluggerrr no specific training on how to toss hot dogs into the crowd. The employee playing Sluggerrr said he tried to make eye contact with nearby fans before throwing, but could not remember the specific toss that allegedly hit Coomer. Another fan testified that Sluggerrr had injured them in a similar way at a different game.1Justia Law. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
The Baseball Rule Before Coomer
Missouri courts have long applied a doctrine sometimes called the “baseball rule,” a version of the primary assumption of risk. If you sit in the stands at a game, you accept certain dangers built into the experience. Foul balls and broken bats fly into the crowd during ordinary play, and those risks cannot be eliminated without changing the sport. Missouri’s version of the rule traces back to a 1942 state supreme court decision and generally requires teams only to provide some protected seating and reasonable warnings about foul-ball danger.2CaseMine. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
When the doctrine applies, an injured fan cannot successfully sue for negligence. The risk is treated as inherent to spectating, and the fan bore responsibility for staying alert. The Royals argued that Sluggerrr’s Hotdog Launch was a familiar, expected part of the stadium experience and belonged under the same protective umbrella. The question the Missouri Supreme Court had to answer was whether a flying hot dog deserves the same legal treatment as a flying baseball.
What the Missouri Supreme Court Decided
The court, in a 2014 opinion, said no. A foul ball is a necessary byproduct of someone swinging a bat at a pitch. A mascot throwing wrapped hot dogs into the stands is a promotional sideshow that has nothing to do with how the game is played. The relevant test, the court explained, is not whether the activity is common at ballparks but whether it is part of the sport itself.1Justia Law. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
Because the hot dog toss was not an inherent risk, primary assumption of risk could not shield the Royals from a negligence claim. The court also held that whether a particular risk qualifies as inherent is a legal question for the judge to resolve, not a factual question for the jury. That made the first trial’s jury instruction improper, because it handed the jury an issue the judge should have settled. The court vacated the verdict and sent the case back for a new trial. This time the jury was to focus on two questions only: whether Sluggerrr’s toss caused the injury, and whether it was negligent.1Justia Law. Coomer v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.
Under Missouri’s comparative fault framework, the jury could still reduce Coomer’s damages by whatever share of fault the evidence assigned to him. The Royals lost the baseball rule as a blanket defense but kept the argument that Coomer contributed to his own injury by looking away.
What Happened at the Retrial
A Jackson County jury retried the case in June 2015 without the assumption-of-risk instruction that had shaped the first trial. Stripped of their strongest legal defense, the Royals had to win on the facts alone. They did. The retrial jury found the Royals were not responsible for Coomer’s injuries, and Coomer received no damages.
The result is a reminder that winning on the law and winning on the facts are separate contests. Coomer secured a major legal victory at the Missouri Supreme Court, establishing that teams cannot use the baseball rule to escape claims arising from promotional stunts. When a second jury evaluated the actual evidence, including Coomer’s own admission that he looked away from Sluggerrr right before impact, the claim still fell short.
Why the Ruling Still Matters
The Coomer decision arrived while courts around the country were already rethinking the reach of the baseball rule. Weeks after the ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court rejected the rule entirely, finding no compelling policy reason to keep it. New Mexico’s highest court adopted a modified version imposing a duty running both ways between teams and fans. Several other courts had already narrowed the rule to exclude injuries in non-seating areas like concourses and concession stands.
The practical effect is that teams can no longer treat every in-stadium injury as something the fan inherently accepted. T-shirt cannons, mascot antics, and giveaway tosses now face a different legal standard in many jurisdictions. When a court decides these activities are not part of the sport, the team’s duty of care starts to resemble that of any other business operating around the public.
One visible response has been the language on the back of MLB tickets. Modern ticket terms reach well beyond the traditional foul-ball warning. Current MLB ticket-back language expressly covers risks from “thrown, dropped, or launched items” and “promotions and competitions” occurring before, during, and after the game.3Cleveland Guardians. Ticket Policies That reads like a direct response to rulings like Coomer, an attempt to sweep in exactly the kind of non-game promotional activity the Missouri Supreme Court placed outside the baseball rule. Whether such fine print would actually hold up against a serious injury claim is another question, and one the Coomer case did not answer.