Shenendehowa Case Study

McGrath v. Shenendehowa Central School District (2010) The case of McGrath v. Shenendehowa Central School District began on May 3rd, 2005 when Theresa McGrath, a senior at Bethlehem High School, suffered a horrific knee injury playing a regular season, varsity lacrosse game at their opponent’s field in the Town of Clifton Park. From Theresa’s perspective, the injury occurred when she tried to perform a “roll dodge” move to avoid a defender. When she planted her left leg to perform the move, she claims that it got stuck in a soft, sand-like material used to patch the field and was the reason why her injury transpired. McGrath filed a complaint saying that Shenendehowa did not maintain a safe field and the use of the soft material created
Canastota Central School District 53 AD3d 851, 851-851 (2008) is as follows, “A person who voluntarily participates in a sport or recreational activity assumes the risks which are inherent in and arise out of the nature of the sport generally and flow from such participation, including those risks associated with the construction of the playing surface and any open and obvious condition on it". However, “Participants in such activities will not, however, be deemed to have assumed concealed or unreasonably increased risks” (see Morgan v. State of New York, 90 NY2d 471, 486 (1997). In this case, the plaintiff, McGrath, states that the defendant, Shenendehowa Central School District, did not maintain a safe playing field and showed negligence when it came to field maintenance. The plaintiff also claimed that before the injury occurred she observed the spots on the field that were repaired and she couldn’t tell them different from regular rough patches of dirt on the field that were covered by grass. So basically she is claiming that she was unaware of the hazardous spots filled with soft, sand-like material and was unaware of the actual risk she was taking because she was only able to observe the surface of the field. She states that when she planted her foot, it “sunk” into the ground and as she continued to perform the move her foot remained stuck in the so-called sinkhole and that is why
Shortly after the damage was done to the field, the ground crew came and repaired the spots and reseeded the areas. One month before the accident, the ground crew came back and did the repair process again. The day after the injury occurred there was a video taken of the field and it showed that the field appeared even at first, but after taking a closer look, there were areas on the field that were lower than others and they had been filled with a substance that could easily be shifted. This evidence heavily supports the argument of the