By Christopher Calnan
An Oregon family is seeking nearly $39 million in a lawsuit involving a head injury the family’s 17-year-old son suffered playing junior varsity football in 2016.
The family of Connor Martin, a Hermiston High School player, is alleging that school officials allowed their son to continue playing after incurring concussions. The player’s parents weren’t immediately informed of the injury and Martin subsequently played in four games despite concussion symptoms. He now has permanent damage, according to the lawsuit filed Sept. 12 in the Circuit Court of Umatilla County, Oregon.
The family is seeking nearly $13.2 million for medical expenses, $700,000 for parental emotional distress, and non-economic damages of $25 million. Martin’s injuries include permanent brain and eye injuries, dizziness, headaches, nausea, photophobia, vertical heterphoria, double vision, oculomotor dysfunction, fatigue, memory loss and difficulty concentrating, the 23-page complaint indicates.
Listed defendants include the Hermiston School District, athletic director Larry Usher, athletic trainer Dan Emery, head football coach David Faeeteete, and junior varsity coach Matthew Bruck. The Martin family is represented by the Portland-based Dolan Law Group PC.
Case-related events began in Sept. 15, 2016, when Martin was sidelined with a suspected concussion during the first quarter of a game. However, he returned to play in the fourth quarter before being pulled again when he was acting confused. Martin failed a concussion evaluation test the following day yet school officials didn’t notify the parents about the test results, the complaint shows.
During the next four weeks, Martin continued to practice with the team and play in four more games. On Oct. 20, 2016, he was concussed again during a fourth-quarter kickoff and sidelined. Symptoms lingered and Martin underwent a series of tests. In late 2016, a physician at the OHSU Concussion Clinic classified his concussion symptoms in the upper five percent in severity and described him with a “moderate to severe” concussion. In mid-2017, a psychologist diagnosed Martin with anxiety and depression as a result of his injury, according to the complaint.
In April, a California football player for Monte Vista High School was awarded $7.1 million in a case related to a concussion and his treatment by school coaches and medical staff. The issue was related to a 2013 freshman football game in which Rashaun Council was allowed to play despite coaches being updated about Council’s odd behavior on the field after being concussed, Sports Litigation Alert reported.
“One of the biggest arguments in Council’s case against the school district was that the delay in diagnosing him and getting him treatment was a critical mistake that drastically worsened the outcome of the incident,” according to the Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman PC, which authored a blog post about the case. “Council’s attorney argued that the freshmen coaches—none of whom had completed state-required concussion training due to a loophole in the system—prioritized the game win over Council’s well-being.”
Also, the district’s policy was “to have a physician at all varsity football games,” but not necessarily sub-varsity games, according to a spokesman at the time. This became a point of contention with the plaintiffs who alleged that the freshmen games should have been staffed too.
Meanwhile, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), which oversees high school sports for the state, reportedly told a television station that there is no CIF rule that requires medical staff at regular-season games. Rather, each school district decides whether to staff the games.
Concussion-related liability expert Eugene Egdorf, senior counsel for Texas-based Shrader & Associates LLP, told Sports Litigation Alert that the Council jury verdict should serve as a wake-up call for officials involved in athletics — whether it’s pew-wee, high school, the NCAA or NFL.
“These organizations and its members must put the athletes first,” he said. “The health and well-being of these young people should not just be priority number one, it should be far and away number one.”
