Assault, Battery, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and Kobe Bryant (Memphis Style)
Tags Bill Geeslin and his wife won courtside tickets to a Grizzlies-Lakers game from a Tunica casino. At the time they must have thought they hit a small jack-pot. As events turned out, they would have been better off going to the buffet instead. During the game, a Lakers player recovered a loose ball and attempted to throw the ball to Kobe Bryant for a fast break lay-up, but the ball went out of bounds and Bryant’s momentum carried him into contact with Mr. Geeslin. Mr. Geeslin’s contact with NBA fame was not pleasant. Bryant acknowledged that he pushed his forearm into Mr. Geeslin’s chest to get up and back into the game. Mr. Geeslin, however, contended that Bryant did not simply use his forearm to get up and leave, but rather intentionally “forearmed” him. He also claimed that Bryant then glared at him, did not apologize, and walked away. Mr. Geeslin was diagnosed with a bruised lung cavity.
Mr. Geeslin speculated that Bryant intentionally forearmed him because the Lakers were behind, not playing well, and the referees had not called a foul on the Grizzlies player who pushed Bryant out of bounds. Two weeks later, feeling violated and “disrespected,” Mr. Geeslin sued Bryant for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a District Court in Memphis, alleging that Bryant used him as a “human punching bag.” The court record does not disclose whether Mr. Geeslin considered a friendly game of horse as a way to settle the matter rather than litigation.
Bryant moved for summary judgment. Before the case was decided, Mr. Geeslin passed away and his estate continued the action. (It does not appear that Mr. Geeslin’s death was related to the incident at the basketball game.) The Court granted Bryant summary judgment on all claims. In short, the assault claim failed because no reasonable juror could conclude Bryant intended to harm Mr. Geeslin (a necessary element of the claim) when Bryant pushed off Mr. Geeslin’s chest to re-enter the game. For the battery claim, the Court concluded it failed on a couple of independent grounds: first, Mr. Geeslin assumed the risk and consented to the contact by sitting courtside, and second, no jury could reasonably conclude that the contact was offensive under the circumstances. With respect to the outrageous conduct claim, the court rejected the plaintiff’s analogy to police brutality cases holding that the facts presented of a courtside spectator being forearmed in the chest during a collision with a basketball player were not sufficiently outrageous to support a cause of action under Tennessee law. Geeslin v. Bryant, 2010 WL 2342433 (W.D. Tenn. Jun. 9, 2010).
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