Thessolonia Smith, by Julia Brown, His Mother and Next Friend, and Julia Brown v. United States

Thessolonia Smith, called Junior, lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 1962 when he was thirteen years old he was a member of the Woolworth store’s Pony League baseball team that went out to Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks, to play a game with another team in the league with its home at the base. The Army Air Force was in control of the area of two baseball playing fields here involved.

Apparently the Woolworth team was having a practice session or “warm-up” on one field before the game began. Junior was chasing fly balls. To recover one ball, he was sent over the fence separating the two fields. In the second field, he apparently recovered the first ball and returned it. No sooner than this was done, another fly ball came over the fence and Junior set out after it. He crashed into a standing short piece of pipe which had been “sawed off” but the stub had not been removed from the playing field when it ceased to be part of a flagpole. There was on the stub of the pole some sort of bracket. At the base of the stub was a large cement collar buttressing the pole. The collar looked not unlike a circular park bench.

As a result of crashing into the bracket on the pole, Junior lost…