Legal News

Off The Hook! KC Royals? Mascot Cleared by Jury for Dog-Toss Injury

By Ashby Jones

Among the things Americans seem to enjoy: fireworks, collisions in which no one gets hurt, wearing sports jerseys while spectating, large showerheads, warmers in car seats, and milkshakes dressed up as coffee drinks.

We Americans also love it when people dress up in big cartoon-character costumes. It’s funny, goofy, silly — and we love it. The stretch of Sixth Avenue just outside LB Central is a testament to that. (Perhaps the only place in the country where you can see spot five life-size Elmos on one city block.)

So it comes as no surprise to us that a Kansas City jury rejected a lawsuit filed last year filed by a man who alleged that the Kansas City Royals’ mascot, Sluggerrr, sent him to the hospital with a detached retina after a negligent toss of a hot dog.

According to this story in the Kansas City Star, jurors deliberated a little more than an hour before finding that the Royals were not liable for injuries.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the Royals had argued that the plaintiff in the case, John Coomer, a longtime Kansas City fan who says he has attended 175 games, was sitting six rows behind the third-base dugout and should have taken more responsibility for his personal protection.

Byron Shores, who played the role of Sluggerrr from February 1996 and October 2009 and threw the hot dog at issue, testified that he didn’t remember the incident and that he spent two years traveling across the country teaching mascot classes that included safety training.

Coomer said he was “hugely disappointed” in the jury’s ruling, but that he respected it.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 10, 2011 (boomark / email).