‘Happy Gilmore’ Golf Shot Breaches Duty of Care

Attention all hack golfers: It has now been judicially decreed, in Nova Scotia, at least, that the "Happy Gilmore" golf shot is a breach of the standard of care required of a golfer playing on a course with other golfers. As a refresher, this is what the "Happy Gilmore shot" looks like (from the Adam Sandler movie "Happy Gilmore," of course): The Slaw blog wrote on Friday that in the recent case of Bezanson v. Hayter, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia had no trouble concluding that the Happy Gilmore shot was, as Carl Spackler similarly said about gophers in "Caddyshack," a menace to the golfing industry. Looking at the facts of the case, they are pretty much exactly what you would expect from a bachelor party golf outing that involved dozens of beers, a bottle of tequila, several marijuana joints smoked "before the third hole," "power slides" in the golf carts and clubs smashed against trees. All of this action was a mere warm-up to the 16th hole, however, when the defendant hit his first shot into the woods, took a mulligan second shot, and then decided to take one more shot "Happy Gilmore"-style despite the fact that the…
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