New York Personal Injury News & NYC Legal Current Events

School District Liable for Injury that Occurred During Gym Class

A jury decided that the Buffalo public school system must pay $944,825 to a teenager who tore knee ligaments during an unsupervised football game in physical-education class. The underlying incident occurred June 5, 2006, a day on which Buffalo's Public School 43 Academy was missing its physical-education teacher. A substitute could not be found, so the gymnasium was unsupervised when the plaintiff, Nicholas Vogl, then 13, arrived for physical-education class. Nicholas and his classmates organized a game of touch football, and Nicholas was hurt after another student pushed him. The defense argued that Nicholas and the others should not have engaged in unsupervised athletic activity, but the jury found that the school was entirely at fault.

Vogl v. City of Buffalo

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