A New Jersey state appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment for a school board and one of its high schools after the defendants were sued by a student-athlete, who injured her knee after tripping over a divot in the playing field.
Plaintiff Elissa Rose Maybloom was a sophomore at Jackson Township Memorial High School. On Sept.27, 2004, she was playing in a co-ed flag football game on an outdoor grass field known as field #4. She had never played football before that day and had never been on field #4. Prior to the game, her teacher, Scott Goodale, had the class participate in drills that would prepare them for the experience.
On the first play of the game, Maybloom ran to catch a pass when her foot “got caught in one of the divots,” causing her to twist her knee. Later that day, she saw “Dr. Grossman,” who diagnosed her as having tears of the meniscus, leading to multiple surgeries.
Maybloom accompanied her stepfather to field #4 a few days later to take photographs, noting in particular a divot “that caused her injury.” Other photos of the field, it was alleged, demonstrated that the field was “riddled” with divots.
As additional support for her claim, the plaintiff enlisted testifying expert Leonard Lucenko, Ph.D., who opined that the defendants, the school and the Jackson Township Board of Education, deviated “from reasonable and prudent standards of care and practice . . . in the conduct of the plaintiff’s class.”
The defendants countered that the plaintiff’s injury was caused by the alleged dangerous condition of field #4, not by any alleged negligent supervision of plaintiff. This would make the plaintiff’s claim subject to the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, which requires a plaintiff to show “that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of the kind of injury which was incurred.”
The appeals court wrote that in the instant case “there was no actual notice of the presence of divots on the field, one of which caused the plaintiff’s accident. Moreover, except that the divot was not detected, there was no proof demonstrating that the defendants failed to exercise due care to detect any dangerous condition.”
Elissa Rose Maybloom v. Jackson Township Board of Education and Jackson Township Memorial High School; Superior Ct. N.J., App. Division; DOCKET NO. A-5906-09T3, 2011 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 508; 3/3/11
Attorneys of Record: (for appellant) Russell Macnow of Sukel, Macnow & Associates. (for respondents) James J. Law of Kennedy, Campbell, Lipski & Dochney.
