A student athlete at Golden Valley High School (GVHS) in California has sued a school district for negligence and failing to provide for student safety after she slipped on a concrete gutter drain and sustained a concussion during a softball game
The incident occurred on April 9, 2013 when GVHS was playing Canyon High School (CHS) at the CHS softball field. After she fell, she sustained “severe blunt force trauma to her head, causing a concussion, loss of cognitive function, and severe pain in her head, neck and back,” according to the lawsuit.
She subsequently sued the William S. Hart Union High School District (Hart), in which CHS resides. “Defendants failed to take the appropriate measures to guard against injury,” she alleged, adding that the defendants failed to ensure the field was “reasonably safe.”
The lawsuit came to light when Hart responded to a California Public Records Act request for materials involved in a separate Title IX investigation by responding that ongoing litigation prevented said disclosure.
Records indicate the suit was filed on Jan. 3, nearly nine months after the alleged injury occurred.
“We just can’t release any more information that has to do with that field or any aspect of that field,” district spokeswoman Gail Pinsker told the media
The plaintiff’s attorneys in the concussion case are seeking more than $25,000 in damages, citing lost wages, general damages, loss of earning capacity and hospital and medical expenses. They are seeming a three-day jury trial.
