Background
Yolanda Ambrose attended a June 2022 party at Geneva Bullocks’s home, where Taylor Entertainment had set up and operated a rented mechanical bull. After watching other guests ride and fall from the bull for about an hour, Ambrose voluntarily rode it. She fell and fractured her left tibia.
Ambrose sued Bullocks and Taylor Entertainment, alleging negligence and, as to Bullocks, premises liability. She claimed Bullocks failed to inspect, supervise, adjust, or warn about the bull. Ambrose settled with Taylor Entertainment. Bullocks moved for summary judgment after discovery, arguing among other things that the risk was open and obvious and that she owed Ambrose no duty.
The Court’s Holding
The appellate court affirmed summary judgment for Bullocks. Assuming without deciding that premises-liability principles applied, the court held that the pertinent danger was the mechanical bull’s spinning and bucking motion, which could unpredictably throw a rider off—not an alleged defect in the bull.
Ambrose offered no evidence that the bull was defective or improperly set up. Her belief that something was missing was based on her own internet research and comparisons with photographs of other bulls. The undisputed evidence also showed that Taylor Entertainment, not Bullocks, set up and operated the bull.
The danger of riding the bull was open and obvious, the court held. Ambrose had watched other people ride and fall, understood the bull would buck and spin, knew she would eventually fall, and recognized that injury was possible. Applying Illinois’s duty factors, the court concluded that Bullocks had no legal duty to protect Ambrose from that obvious risk.
Key Takeaways
- A plaintiff opposing summary judgment cannot rely on unsupported allegations that an amusement device was defective.
- The relevant risk was falling from a spinning and bucking mechanical bull, rather than a purportedly defective component for which there was no evidence.
- A landowner owed no duty to protect a guest who voluntarily encountered the open and obvious risks of riding the mechanical bull.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Illinois’s open-and-obvious doctrine to a party guest’s voluntary use of a mechanical bull. Even though the court considered the traditional duty factors rather than treating the doctrine as an automatic bar, the guest’s knowledge of the bull’s ordinary falling risk defeated the claimed duty.
The order was issued under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 23 and is nonprecedential except in the limited circumstances allowed by Rule 23(e)(1).