Dartmouth pitcher sues over BP injury

How does an Ivy Leaguer not understand how to use an L-screen?

That comment does not address the allegations in the suit, per the report.

What I would surmise is that you have a young man with a very serious injury, who is looking to find compensation somehow.  Whether his allegations are true, or whether he's just saying what he has to in order to get into court, I cannot say.  In real life, you see both sorts of things happen, and you just can't tell which cases are wheat and which are chaff until the evidence comes out.

A few comments:

1.  If the L-screen were provided but was inadequate size, there may be a claim.

2.  If the L-screen netting had worn holes, if the program knew this but the player didn't, there may be a claim.

3.  If lighting was so dark that the pitcher could not react in time to get behind the screen, that may be a claim.

BTW, that's not to say the pitcher might not ALSO be partially to blame.  In our state, partial fault bars claims.  But in many other states, it does not, and there can be sharing of responsibility for the harm suffered.  I don't know how New Hampshire handles such things.

My point is simply this:  This case is not patently frivolous.  And if you think it is, take a moment to consider how you'd feel if your son had been blinded in one eye, and you found out the situation was some combination of 1, 2 and 3.

I've lost count of how many worn, tattered, undersized, and unsafe L screens I've run across in batting cages. Seems like a place like Dartmouth should have decent L screens, though?

I don’t believe I’ve ever been in an indoor facility that is as well lit as being outdoors in daylight. In these terms every indoor facility is inadequately lit.

I can understand the family trying to gain compensation. But if the pitcher was instructed to follow through and stay behind the screen logically the argument is over. But logic isn’t always part of the court room. Then throw in cases are mostly settlements on the cost of a settlement versus the cost of going to trial along with the odds of winning or losing.

A baseball player good enough and smart enough to play at Dartmouth sure as hell should know how to pitch from behind an L screen. Don't see how lighting has anything to do with it...you pitch from BEHIND the netting, not beside it.

  Only way that Dartmouth should be on the hook is if there was a faulty screen, or if there were others guys  around practicing in an unsafe manner.

Sad story. If the kid prevails, I suspect the school would only be on the hook to the extent of its insurance deductible. 

1. Poorly lit.....not sure how that's an issue unless the lights are off.  Pretty sure I pitched to my son several times when it was close to 9pm....the L-screen was no more than 3 feet in front of my face....I could see it fine.

2. Screen was old......unless there were holes and that's where the ball came thru to hit him, I don't see how this is pertinent

3.  College level coaches didn't instruct him how to use it?   I coached 8 year olds that understood how to use an L-screen....and I don't remember ever having to "instruct" them

I'm gonna guess that the lawsuit is just a way to get the school's insurance company to cover more than they were originally willing to pay.  I'm sure they took responsibility for one of their players being injured at practice.  I'm guessing it's an issue with how much "pain and suffereing" compensation he is going to come away with.  

I bet they replaced/repaired the L screens and replaced any burnt out bulbs within an hour of the suit being filed. 

Buckeye 2015 posted:

 

I'm gonna guess that the lawsuit is just a way to get the school's insurance company to cover more than they were originally willing to pay.  I'm sure they took responsibility for one of their players being injured at practice.  I'm guessing it's an issue with how much "pain and suffereing" compensation he is going to come away with.  

I practiced and taught law for a good while and I can tell you that media reports about law suits are VERY often wrong in important particulars.  I try not to judge legal cases based on media reports.  There may be more (or less) here than is conveyed in a 200-word online blurb.

The student reportedly has $430,000 in medical bills, so his insurance carrier may be behind the suit in an effort to recover some of what they have spent. 

If the pitcher was negligent, that will impact his ability to recover.  As Midlo Dad notes above, in some states it means he will recover nothing.  But if the L-screen was worn out or there was some other issue, why shouldn't Dartmouth pay for some or all of the costs?  If it were your son, even if he had used the L-screen incorrectly, would you really say:  "Well, Junior, you screwed up.  Guess you will just have to deal on your own with crippling debt and losing the sight in one eye." ?  I never represented plaintiff's in suits of this type, but I can understand why this kid might sue Dartmouth.

(And before you say he should have refused to use a faulty L-screen:  If you were a young pitcher, would you want to tell your college coach that you weren't going to throw BP because you think the equipment looks unsafe?  I don't think that would go over well.)

Obviously I don't have the law experience that Chico Escuela does, but I do teach a little bit of an introduction to Sports Law in my Sports Medicine class... Here's what I tell our kids:

Why do people sue?

It's interesting to me that a pitcher would be using an L-screen to throw BP.  Was it BP or was it live hitting in practice?   I've never heard my son talk about them throwing BP....meaning with an L-screen and likely much closer than they would be if they were in a game situation.   I'm not sure if they use an L-screen or not when he throws live BP, though he was also a SS since the day he started playing baseball, so I guess I'd be a little less worried about him not being able to protect himself than someone who maybe has less defensive ability.  I'll ask him....I'm kind of curious

I just asked him....he said they throw live indoors and he doesn't use an L-screen....said he's more worried about balls hitting off of it and hitting him  than he is not being able to field a ball on his own.   Also, said they have never had players "throw BP"...behind an L-screen...it's always a coach.

Bulldog 19 posted:

Obviously I don't have the law experience that Chico Escuela does, but I do teach a little bit of an introduction to Sports Law in my Sports Medicine class... Here's what I tell our kids:

Why do people sue?

•People have a right to sue.

•Participants believe they should be able to participate without risk of injury.

•There is a monetary expense to injuries so people may sue to recover for medical expenses.

•Increase expectations on young athletes. (Appenzeller, 2000)

•More acceptance by the courts of comparative negligence settlements

 

And I've been on the defendant side of the table.. not much fun there. 

Medical costs are the big one.  Even if you are someone who thinks pain & suffering damages are a crock, medical expenses are real and a Very Big Deal.

But as I think about this more:  Don't colleges generally require students to either buy medical insurance through the school or provide proof of other coverage (usually through a parent's plan)?  That's what my daughter's college does.  So I assume this pitcher was insured.  In which case, the $400k+ in medical costs should have been mostly paid by an insurance company, and that insurance company may be the real plaintiff. 

Anyhow, to state the obvious: none of us knows the full story.  I can imagine scenarios where I'd think Dartmouth was at fault, others where I wouldn't think so at all.  If it were my son who suffered this kind of terrible injury, I can certainly imagine wanting to sue someone.  That doesn't make it right to do so, of course.  I just wouldn't jump to conclusions either way based on this article.  Sounds like an awful situation for the kid and his family, and I'm sure his teammates and coaches felt terrible about his injury when it happened.

Bulldog 19 posted: 

And I've been on the defendant side of the table.. not much fun there. 

Not much fun on either side of the table: 

"I must say that, as a litigant, I should dread a lawsuit beyond almost anything short of sickness and death."  (Judge Learned Hand)

I can't tell you how many times I have been hit.  I was hit in the head and my eyesight was damaged.  I had been to the eye doctor 2 weeks before and left with perfect eye sight.  After this incident, I now have to wear glasses.  I was hit in the acromioclavicular joint and that was bad.  I used to have a "plus arm."  Now, I have a puss arm.  I was hit by a ball that broke the middle finger of my throwing hand.  I've been hit in the ribs so many times I couldn't count them.  I threw BP and coached hitting and my fault was that I'd throw a pitch and concentrate on what the hitter was doing so I could coach them.  Invariably, I didn't get myself out of the way.  I feel terrible for this young man and, yes, we don't know the whole story.  We will eventually as it goes to court.  I hope he does recover.  The damage to the acromioclavicular joint was supposed to end my playing and BP career but it didn't.  With modern medicine, there is always a chance something will come along to fix some of his problems.  

I don't see any point in discussing what the evidence might be, based on news reports.  I've been involved with news stories more than a few times in my life.  The big thing you learn is that the reporting of events often departs substantially from what you know to be the actual facts.  Sometimes this is the result of bias (the "angle" the reporter is looking to pursue in choosing this, from among any number of prospective stories, as the one he/she wants to tell).  Other times it's just mistakes, often failure to understand the setting, or failing to record what people tell the reporter accurately.

The point being, it's a mistake to judge law suits based on news (or other) reports.  Unless you're sitting in the jury box and hearing all the evidence, sometimes you just have to have the humility to say, "I really don't know." 

That may seem passe' in this internet era, but it's something we would do well to rediscover.

Chico Escuela posted:

Bulldog 19 posted:

Obviously I don't have the law experience that Chico Escuela does, but I do teach a little bit of an introduction to Sports Law in my Sports Medicine class... Here's what I tell our kids:

Why do people sue?

•People have a right to sue.

•Participants believe they should be able to participate without risk of injury.

•There is a monetary expense to injuries so people may sue to recover for medical expenses.

•Increase expectations on young athletes. (Appenzeller, 2000)

•More acceptance by the courts of comparative negligence settlements

 

And I've been on the defendant side of the table.. not much fun there. 

Medical costs are the big one.  Even if you are someone who thinks pain & suffering damages are a crock, medical expenses are real and a Very Big Deal.

But as I think about this more:  Don't colleges generally require students to either buy medical insurance through the school or provide proof of other coverage (usually through a parent's plan)?  That's what my daughter's college does.  So I assume this pitcher was insured.  In which case, the $400k+ in medical costs should have been mostly paid by an insurance company, and that insurance company may be the real plaintiff. 

Anyhow, to state the obvious: none of us knows the full story.  I can imagine scenarios where I'd think Dartmouth was at fault, others where I wouldn't think so at all.  If it were my son who suffered this kind of terrible injury, I can certainly imagine wanting to sue someone.  That doesn't make it right to do so, of course.  I just wouldn't jump to conclusions either way based on this article.  Sounds like an awful situation for the kid and his family, and I'm sure his teammates and coaches felt terrible about his injury when it happened.

Yes, medical expenses tend to be a big issue. Parents don't always understand what is covered by a school policy and what might not be. We've had parents who believe that the school should pay any and all expenses (at the high school level).

Now, at the college level, I'm pretty sure the NCAA carries a catastrophic injury policy that kicks in at $95k in expenses. And while that seems really high, if he's facing $430k then that'd be a huge difference.. 

Will certainly be interesting to watch this play out..

Just curious. Would it matter if he was NOT a player but rather a student manager?  I only ask this because at LSU, every time I watched BP, either a coach or manager threw BP, never a player. I’ve never thought about it. I wonder does the school require the managers to have insurance like it does the players?  It wasn’t clear if the student involved was a player or not. 

younggun posted:

Just curious. Would it matter if he was NOT a player but rather a student manager?  I only ask this because at LSU, every time I watched BP, either a coach or manager threw BP, never a player. I’ve never thought about it. I wonder does the school require the managers to have insurance like it does the players?  It wasn’t clear if the student involved was a player or not. 

I had the same thought. I looked up old rosters for Dartmouth and the young man was listed as a pitcher on the roster. The accident occurred, February of his Freshman year.  So in this case it was a rostered pitcher. 

CoachB25 posted:

I can't tell you how many times I have been hit.  I was hit in the head and my eyesight was damaged.  I had been to the eye doctor 2 weeks before and left with perfect eye sight.  After this incident, I now have to wear glasses.  I was hit in the acromioclavicular joint and that was bad.  I used to have a "plus arm."  Now, I have a puss arm.  I was hit by a ball that broke the middle finger of my throwing hand.  I've been hit in the ribs so many times I couldn't count them.  I threw BP and coached hitting and my fault was that I'd throw a pitch and concentrate on what the hitter was doing so I could coach them.  Invariably, I didn't get myself out of the way.  I feel terrible for this young man and, yes, we don't know the whole story.  We will eventually as it goes to court.  I hope he does recover.  The damage to the acromioclavicular joint was supposed to end my playing and BP career but it didn't.  With modern medicine, there is always a chance something will come along to fix some of his problems.  

Wow. My son nailed my in the upper right arm and the bruise I had was ridiculous. Hurt badly for a few days of course, but then the bruise was like a moving sunset down toward my elbow. I saw that LD clear the upright by 1/8" of an inch like it was in slow motion. Then whap into my arm like meat. I'm sure a super-slow motion video capture would be eye-opening. My son, it seemed, delighted in hitting LDs right back at me. Sometimes the first damn pitch.

 Do you wear a batting helmet at this point when throwing BP?

Just a guess, but is the kid "pre-law" declared major?

We had a player who was hit in the head while not being totally behind the L screen in HS. I think he was a fresh or soph. He went into a coma. He recovered and is fine now. It was scary. His parents are incredible folks and the family is awesome and did not sue the school. Rules changed with that injury and coaches are now required to be in the cages with the players. 

I always relied on falling into the screened area after letting go of a pitch, but a quick youtube search changed the way I threw BP.  Once you get the hang of it, throwing from behind the screen makes it easier to throw strikes because you're no longer worried about getting hit.  I don't let any coach or player throw incorrectly now.  

This article has a little more information than the original post. One piece of information; Dartmouth destroyed the video tape, threw out the L screen and replaced it with a new one. 

http://www.unionleader.com/app...727/NEWS21/180729522

RJM posted:

This article has a little more information than the original post. One piece of information; Dartmouth destroyed the video tape, threw out the L screen and replaced it with a new one. 

RJM, if you meant to provide a link, it didn't make it into your post.  I'd like to see the article you referred to, if you'd please try to post it again. 

CONCORD — A Dartmouth College student athlete is suing the school after he says his right eye socket was crushed during a baseball practice in 2016.

Lawyers for Colton French of Oregon filed a lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Concord that claims he suffered broken bones and a crushed right eye socket in 2016 during a baseball practice inside the indoor facility known as Leverone Arena during his freshman year.

According to the lawsuit, French was pitching to a batter in a narrow indoor area enclosed by netting using an L-screen — a tall, L-shaped screen designed to protect the pitcher with a cut-out area that allows for live pitching. The suit states that after releasing one of his pitches, French failed to keep his head behind the protective metal screen. The batter then hit the ball off French’s head, breaking facial bones and crushing his right eye socket.

French required emergency medical care, “and has since undergone numerous surgeries and other medical treatment, resulting in expenses which exceed $430,000,” the lawsuit reads. “The plaintiff has lost the vision in his eye, and the bones surrounding it are permanently disfigured. The plaintiff has a metal plate in his head, and, because of his loss of vision, and the risk of further injury or death, can no longer play baseball or other sports of a contact nature or which require depth perception/peripheral vision.”

The lawsuit claims French has suffered from depression and anxiety requiring counseling since suffering his injuries.

“As a result of his physical and emotional disabilities, the plaintiff was unable to return to school for the remainder of the 2015-2016 academic year, which will delay his graduation and ability to enter the workforce and earn a living,” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, and alleges the college was negligent because the practice facility was poorly illuminated, “the ‘L’ screen from behind which the plaintiff was pitching was old” and “inappropriate for college or professional level baseball activity,” and when French was standing on the wooden “mound” his head was above the screen.

“The defendant (Dartmouth) discarded the screen after the plaintiff was injured, and replaced it with one of a college and professional level quality,” the suit states.

“The defendants knew or should have known of the risk of injury to the plaintiff by being hit by a batted ball in the circumstances alleged.”