What’s the difference between a golf course view property and a golf course in-play property? About five million dollars according to the court. I’m Amy E. Feldman.
A Massachusetts family just won a five million dollar lawsuit against a country club the family said failed to protect them against errant golf balls. Six hundred fifty-one of them to be exact—the number of golf balls that have hit their property in the four years they’ve lived there, breaking numerous windows and causing the family to live in fear.
The country club argued that the family knew what they were getting when they bought a house on a golf course. And there’s something to that argument—if you see there’s an obvious hazard but choose to buy there anyway, there’s a legal principle that says you assumed that risk and you can’t sue if you’re harmed. But the court found before they bought the house, they didn’t know that because of how the course was laid out, the golfers would blast the ball to clear a tree line, and the club should have moved the hole back once the danger became FOREseeable.
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