ee,
"LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY IN POOL OPERATION"
By
John B, Harris
Assistant Attorney General, State of Illinois

It is doubtless the law that the proprietor of a natatorium is liable
for injuries to a patron resulting from lack of ordinary care in providing for
his safety, without fault of the patron; but he is not in any sense an insurer
of the safety of patrons, and the death of a patron within his premises does not
cast upon him the burden of excusing himself from any presumption of negligence.

And it was held accordingly, in Bertalot v. Kinnare, 72 Ill. App.52,
that there could be no recovery for the death by drowning of a fifteen-year-old
boy in the defendant's natatorium, where it appeared merely that he was last
seen alive in the water at the shallow end of the pool, and some ten or fifteen
minutes later was discovered unconscious and perhaps already lifeless, at the
bottom of the pool, all efforts to resuscitate him being without avail.

The proprietor of a bathing establishment owes to his eustomers a
duty to exercise reasonable care to maintain the premises in a safe condition:
but he does not insure the safety of his patrons against accident: and his duty
to patrons is satisfied when he uses reasonable care to maintain the premises
in a safe condition for their proper use by the patrons. Rom. v. Huber (1919)
93 N.J.L. 360, 108 Atl. 361, affirmed in (1920) 94 NVJ.L. e208, 109 Atl.504.

Proprietors of a bathing resort, in discharging the duty of ordinary
care for the safety of patrons, may be obliged to keep some one on duty to
supervise bathers and rescue any apparently in danger; and may also be held
liable for negligence if, on information that a bather is missing, they are
tardy in instituting search. Thus, in Brotherton v. Manhattan Beach Improv. Co.
(1896) 48 Neb. 463, 33 LRA, 599, 58 Am.St.Rep. 709, 67 N.W. 479, affirmed
on rehearing in (1897) 50 Neb. 214 69 N.W, 757, 1 Am. Neg, Rev. 115, an action
against the company which maintained a bathing resort, for the death of a patron
by drowning, where there was evidence that the resort was on a lake shore, was
trequented by an average of 10,000 bathers a month, and the evidence failed to
show that the company had any guard or attendant to watch over the bathers,
or to rescue them if in danger, and also showed that, when it was notified of
a bather's disappearance, it did not institute immediate search, although the
evidence warranted an inference that an immediate search would have resulted
ir, the bather's rescue before death, it was held that the question of negligence
should have been submitted to the jury, and that a peremptory instruction for
the defendant was erroneous. The court said: "We think it is a reasonable
inference that persons of ordinary prudence, conducting a bathing resort fre-
quented by 10,000 people a month, should, in the exercise of ordinary care,
keep some one on duty to supervise bathers and rescue any apparently in danger;
and, if not, that it is certainly a reasonable inference that persons so sit-
uated should, on ascertaining that a person last seen in the water is missing,
without a moment*s delay, exert every effort to search for that person in the
water and not merely advise a youthful companion of the missing person to search -
on the land and coolly watch the result of such search",

After stating that the rule is well settled that the omers of resorts
to which people generally are expressly or by implication invited are legally
bound to exercise ordinary care and prudence in the management and maintenance of
such resorts, to the end of making them reasonably safe for visitors, the court
in Larkin v. Saltair Beach Co. (1905) 30 Utah, 96, 3 L.R.A, (N.S.) 982, 116 Am.
St. Rep. 818, 83 Pac.686, 8 Ann.Cas.977, said, regarding the duty of the pro-
prietor of a bathing resort: "And when the business is that of keeping or carrying
on a bathing resort, the authorities held that the proprietors or owners thereof
are not only required to exercise that same degree of care and prudence with
respect to keeping the premises in a reasonably safe condition, which the law