Couple won $3.5M after 651 stray golf balls hit their property. But ruling overturned

A couple in Massachusetts living near a country club said stray golf balls regularly pummeled their home, shattering windows, frightening their young child and forcing them to confine themselves indoors for fear of injury.

Following a lawsuit brought against the country club, they were awarded millions of dollars in damages by a jury this spring, McClatchy News previously reported. That verdict has just been overturned.

In 2017, Erik and Athina Tenczar purchased their home next to the fairway of the 15th hole of the Indian Pond Country Club, located 30 miles south of Boston, according to their lawsuit.

After moving in, the couple, who has a young child, noticed errant balls repeatedly striking their property, court documents show. They said they were never told that the house and yard were in an area regularly hit by balls.

They complained to the country club management, but said they never received a response, according to the complaint.

An attorney representing the country club’s owner told NewsCenter 5 in April that a risk of living on a golf course is the possibility for damage caused by balls, adding that the course has insurance that covers damages.

John Flemming, an attorney for the country club’s owner, told McClatchy News on Dec. 21, that the verdict being overturned is “good news for golf courses.”

“There’s been a rash of cases brought by homeowners thinking that they can collect millions of dollars,” Flemming said.

The Tenczars decided to keep a running count of the stray balls, which they said caused damage to the home’s siding, deck and broke eight windows. Since 2017, 651 balls struck their property, they said, causing them to remain indoors during golf hours.

Strikes terrified the couple’s young daughter and interrupted Athina Tenczar’s work calls, leading her to become hopeless, Erik Tenczar testified.

The country club eventually planted multiple arborvitae trees near the Tenczar’s home and made minor alterations to the course, though it didn’t install protective netting suggested by a contractor hired by the Tenczars, court documents show.

Following the lawsuit filed in 2018 and subsequent trial, a jury awarded the couple $3.4 million for emotional distress and $100,000 for property damage, documents show. With fees and interest factored in, the total amount neared $5 million.

However, the country club appealed the case, arguing that the club “reserved the right to operate a golf course in a normal manner on properties adjacent to the golf course,” which includes, “the right to have errant golf balls enter the lots.”

On Dec. 20 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court overturned the multimillion-dollar verdict, citing misinterpreted documents and a poorly instructed jury.

“As the jury were not instructed accordingly and the failure to give the instruction was prejudicial, the verdict must be reversed and the injunction lifted,” Justice Scott Kafker wrote in the court’s decision.

The suit has now been sent back to state superior court for a new trial.

“The Tenczars are disappointed that the SJC decided the matter in the manner that it did but grateful for their time and attention to the issues,” Robert Galvin, the couple’s attorney, told McClatchy News over email.

“We expect to retry the case sometime after January 2023,” he added.

Thousands of homes across the U.S. are built in areas vulnerable to golf ball strikes, according to the New York Times.

The problem of damage caused by errant golf balls has been exacerbated by “technologically advanced golf equipment that makes golf balls go farther — and farther sideways,” David Mulvihill, a managing director at the Urban Land Institute, told the Times.

Exactly how dangerous errant golf balls are is difficult to determine. Of the 106 golf course worker fatalities that occurred between 2001 and 2006, only six were caused by “falling objects,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In 2014, just over 30,000 people went to an emergency room with “golf-course-related injuries,” according to Golf Digest.

This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 10:56 AM with the headline "Couple won $3.5M after 651 stray golf balls hit their property. But ruling overturned."