Followup: NY Supreme Court Dismisses "No Fore!" Lawsuit

Call it a victory for common sense: the New York Supreme Court has dismissed the lawsuit where a man injured by an errant golf ball sued the golfer for not yelling "Fore!" 

Dr. Anoop Kapoor and Dr. Azad Anand were playing on a nine-hole Long Island course in October 2002 when Anand was hit in the head while looking for his ball on a fairway, blinding him in one eye. The seven judges on the state Court of Appeals, siding with lower courts, said Kapoor's failure to yell in advance of his errant shot from the rough did not amount to intentional or reckless conduct.

The court cited a judge's finding that Anand was not in the foreseeable zone of danger and, as a golfer, consented to the inherent risks of the sport.

In other words, you want to be careful when your partner is swinging, because you might get hit by a golf ball and that's the nature of the game.  Which should be something that anyone with the common sense that God promises a billy-goat would be able to figure out. As a doctor, we can safely assume that Dr. Anand is nobody's fool.

Instead, a lawyer tried to monetize an honest accident, and one where the injured party was at least partially liable because it's also common sense and a golf courtesy to stay behind someone and out of their vision when they are making their stroke.  Had Dr. Anand been behind Dr. Kapoor, he probably would never have been hit in the first place.

Thank goodness the courts actually applied some common sense of their own and threw this one out.

Personally, I hope that Dr. Kapoor is able to recover his legal fees and expenses that came as a result of this frivilouscase.