The golf industry has much riding on the outcome of “Gregory E. Saska et al., vs. Omni Hotels Management Corporation.”
Let’s call it the Poinsettia fire case for short – not poinsettia as in the red and green plant that you see everywhere in December, but Poinsettia as in the name of the street that abuts the 7th hole on the Champions Course at La Costa Golf Club in Carlsbad. The fire allegedly originated in the strip between Poinsettia Lane and the 7th fairway.
Saska and company, mostly a horde of insurance companies that paid millions in claims from the freak fire that rampaged through the canyons of Carlsbad in May 2014, are suing Omni La Costa for failing to demonstrate due care in performing one of the following acts. Take your …show more content…
The case will turn on the first four points, all of which describe normative golf course practice. And that’s why this case packs a punch for the golf industry.
To point one, if the mere act of removing plant material that one knows to be fire retardant (irrigated turf is incapable of ignition) and replacing it with plant material that one knows is capable of ignition under the right circumstances, which were very much in place the day of the Poinsettia fire, then every golf course that has removed turf in an effort to reduce its water footprint is subject to a negligence claim whenever a removed area is the source or the mere conduit of a fire otherwise caused by Santa Ana conditions. If nothing else, insurance premiums will skyrocket.
To point two, whether California friendly or native, drought tolerant vegetation burns. It’s the nature of the beast, or more accurately the nature of nature. It’s how natural areas rejuvenate themselves. It’s irrigated turf that is unnatural. To find that restoration of an unnatural area to a natural state constitutes actionable negligence is as curious as it is potentially calamitous to an industry that has been prodded by public policy makers to do just
Let’s call it the Poinsettia fire case for short – not poinsettia as in the red and green plant that you see everywhere in December, but Poinsettia as in the name of the street that abuts the 7th hole on the Champions Course at La Costa Golf Club in Carlsbad. The fire allegedly originated in the strip between Poinsettia Lane and the 7th fairway.
Saska and company, mostly a horde of insurance companies that paid millions in claims from the freak fire that rampaged through the canyons of Carlsbad in May 2014, are suing Omni La Costa for failing to demonstrate due care in performing one of the following acts. Take your …show more content…
The case will turn on the first four points, all of which describe normative golf course practice. And that’s why this case packs a punch for the golf industry.
To point one, if the mere act of removing plant material that one knows to be fire retardant (irrigated turf is incapable of ignition) and replacing it with plant material that one knows is capable of ignition under the right circumstances, which were very much in place the day of the Poinsettia fire, then every golf course that has removed turf in an effort to reduce its water footprint is subject to a negligence claim whenever a removed area is the source or the mere conduit of a fire otherwise caused by Santa Ana conditions. If nothing else, insurance premiums will skyrocket.
To point two, whether California friendly or native, drought tolerant vegetation burns. It’s the nature of the beast, or more accurately the nature of nature. It’s how natural areas rejuvenate themselves. It’s irrigated turf that is unnatural. To find that restoration of an unnatural area to a natural state constitutes actionable negligence is as curious as it is potentially calamitous to an industry that has been prodded by public policy makers to do just