Stirgus v. St. John the Baptist Parish School Board

121 So. 3d 197, 13 La.App. 5 Cir. 15, 2013 WL 3889244, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1541
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 30, 2013
DocketNo. 13-CA-15
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 121 So. 3d 197 (Stirgus v. St. John the Baptist Parish School Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stirgus v. St. John the Baptist Parish School Board, 121 So. 3d 197, 13 La.App. 5 Cir. 15, 2013 WL 3889244, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1541 (La. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

ROBERT A. CHAISSON, Judge.

| aThis is an appeal by the St. John the Baptist School Board, and two of its football coaches, Larry Dauterive and Ronald Barrilloux, from a judgment in favor of Armaud Stirgus, for injuries that he suffered during a football practice at the school. Mr. Stirgus has answered the appeal seeking an increase in the award of damages. For the following reasons, we [198]*198reduce the amount awarded for medical expenses. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Armaud Stirgus was a student at East St. John High School and played on its football team. On January 22, 2007, during an outdoor off-season practice session, it began raining heavily, so coaches Dau-terive and Barrilloux decided to move the practice into the gym. While outside, the players wore shorts and shirts, and had their cleats on. They were instructed to go back to the locker room and change into dry clothes and tennis shoes for inside practice. Although there was conflicting evidence as to whether all of the players changed, it was not disputed that even lathose players who put on dry clothes had to cross an uncovered expanse of about 25 yards in the continuing rain to get from the locker room to the gym.

Once in the gym; about twenty of the players, including Mr. Stirgus, began running full speed passing patterns, which generally involved the receiver going a few steps forward and then making a cut to the side where the quarterback would deliver the ball. While running a pass route, Mr. Stirgus jumped for the ball, but when he came down his feet slipped out from under him and he injured his hip on impact with the floor. He sat out the remainder of the Monday practice and went home on the school bus. Later that evening his mother took him to an emergency room where he was diagnosed as having a muscle spasm in his hip. He continued to have pains over the next few days, and a second examination on Friday showed a fractured hip. Dr. Joseph Gonzales, Jr., a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon, performed surgery on Mr. Stirgus, using a plate and screws to stabilize the joint.

Suit was brought against the school and the coaches1, alleging that they had failed to provide proper supervision and had allowed an unreasonable risk of injury to develop during the indoor practice. The parties stipulated to medical expenses of $21,626.57. After a bench trial, the trial judge awarded Mr. Stirgus $50,000 in past pain and suffering, and also awarded medical expenses of $71,871.71, which was $50,245.14 more than the stipulated amount. This appeal followed.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

We first address the issue of the award for medical expenses. At the beginning of the trial, Michael T. Beckers, Mr. Stirgus’s counsel, entered the following stipulation:

Your honor, included in the medical records are the bills. And I’d like just for the record to state that we're stipulating as to the amount of the medical bills incurred, that there’s going to be some confusion in |4there because there were charges in excess of what Medicaid paid. And the Medicaid covered bills are $16,165.77.
We have additional bills from Dr. Chandenia (phonetically) of $956. Those records were introduced. And additional bills of $4,504.80 from St. John Physical Therapy.
The total medical bills incurred today (sic) are $21,626.57.

Despite this stipulation, the trial judge awarded $71,871.71 in medical expenses, $47,208 of which was for bills from Children’s Hospital. Those bills were paid by Medicaid according to its fee schedule, [199]*199rather than what the hospital showed as its normal charges. This difference is not collectible from Mr. Stirgus, and thus it was error to award him this difference. This is precisely the confusion that the stipulation was meant to avoid, and the trial judge was clearly wrong in awarding any amount other than the stipulated amount. We thus amend the judgment to provide that the proper award for all past medical expenses is $21,626.57.

We next address the issue of liability. In Robinson v. Jefferson Parish School Bd., 08-1224 (La.App. 5 Cir. 4/7/09), 9 So.3d 1035, 1046-47, this court summarized the law relating to the liability of schools for injury to their students as follows:

A school board, through its agents and teachers, owes a duty of reasonable supervision over students. The supervision required is reasonable, competent supervision appropriate to the age of the children and the attendant circumstances. This duty does not make the school board the insurer of the safety of the children. Constant supervision of all students is not possible nor required for educators to discharge their duty to provide adequate supervision.
Before liability can be imposed upon a school board for failure to adequately supervise the safety of students, there must be proof of negligence in providing supervision and also proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident.
To establish a claim against a school board for failure to adequately supervise the safety of its students, a plaintiff must prove: (1) negligence on the part of the school board, its agents, or teachers in | ^providing supervision; (2) a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident; and (3) that the risk of unreasonable injury was foreseeable, constructively or actually known, and preventable if a requisite degree of supervision had been exercised. [citations omitted ]

In the present case, the ultimate issue is whether the coaches were negligent in permitting a full speed practice to be conducted in the gym in the conditions that then prevailed, and the paramount factual question in this regard is whether the floor was wet. The evidence on this point was varied. There was no dispute that the players had been caught in the rain during the outside practice and had come into the locker room to change their clothes and shoes. It was also not seriously disputed that some of the players may not have changed before coming to the gym, and further, that even if all of the players had changed they still had to traverse an open space of about 25 yards in the rain to get from the locker room to the gym. There was also general agreement that about 20 players were executing the fourth pass route when the accident occurred, which meant that between 45 and 80 individual pass routes had already been run with at most possibly one prior mishap.

As to the condition of the floor, Mr. Stirgus testified that he did not see any water on the floor in the area where the passing drills were being run, but he did see water on other parts of the gym floor. He said that after he fell he noticed that his gym shorts were wet on the spot where they hit the floor, and he also noticed some wet streaks on the floor in the same area. He also said that another player had slipped down in that area before him. He was also sure that he had changed into dry clothes before coming into the gym. The two coaches both testified that they did not recall water being on the floor where the drills were being run, and both said that Mr. Stirgus was the only person to fall that day. Brandon Kephart, the player [200]*200who was next in line behind Mr. Stirgus to run the pass route, testified by way of deposition. He said that he did not see any water on the floor where Mr.

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121 So. 3d 197, 13 La.App. 5 Cir. 15, 2013 WL 3889244, 2013 La. App. LEXIS 1541, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stirgus-v-st-john-the-baptist-parish-school-board-lactapp-2013.