Lawsuit: "Wiencek argues that Fripp Island Resort, Inc., and several subsidiaries created not only an attraction for golfers, but an 'artificial habitat' for alligators."

Thanks to reader Kevin for this On Point post about golfer James Wiencek suing Ocean Creek Golf Club for creating an "artificial habitat" that allowed a 10-pound foot alligator to bite off Wiencek's arm.

But Wiencek argues that Fripp Island Resort, Inc., and several subsidiaries created not only an attraction for golfers, but an “artificial habitat” for alligators. The Ocean Creek course was designed by PGA champion Davis Love III.

The defendants were negligent “in designing, building, and maintaining the 11th hole pond such that it had dark, brackish water, steep banks, and thick vegetation rendering it difficult or impossible for golf patrons to see or notice the presence of large and aggressive alligators,” Wiencek said in a lawsuit filed last week in Beaufort, S.C.

Now you know why we have too many fountains and cement-lined ponds in golf.

Certainly, the pond is an “artificial habitat” in the sense that it did not exist until the golf course was built. But in a similar case, a Florida appeals court said a recreational park was not liable for an alligator attack because it had not “reduced the alligator to possession before the attack.” Palumbo v. Game & Fresh Water Fish Com'n, 487 So.2d 352 (1986).

“There is no property in wild animals until they have been subjected to the control of man,” one authority on torts has noted. “If one secures and tames them, they are his property; if he does not tame them, they are still his, so long as they are kept confined and under his control.”

According to Wiencek, the 11th hole at Ocean Creek features a “large and deep pond” near the green. He hit his ball “near, but not in” the pond, he says in his suit, and when he reached his right arm toward the ball, “without warning a large 10 foot long alligator sprung from the brackish and dark water and attacked Plaintiff, biting and holding Plaintiff’s right arm.”

“The alligator then pulled Plaintiff into the water and attempted to initiate a roll, pulling Plaintiff underwater,” he continues. “Plaintiff struggled with the alligator, and the alligator tore Plaintiff’s right arm off in a violent and vicious manner above the elbow.”

Tragic stuff, but is that really a design and maintenance flaw? Seems like a potentially dreadful precedent should he prevail.