Head Injury at School Compensation Awarded to Former Student

A 22-year-old man, who sustained debilitating brain damage from playing American football at high school, has been awarded 4.4 million dollars in head injury at school compensation.

Scott Eveland from San Marcos, California, was just eighteen years of age when he collapsed at the side of the American football field on September 14th 2007 half way through a game in which he was playing as a linebacker for the Mission Hills High School Grizzlies.

Scott was rushed to hospital with internal bleeding around his brain, and doctors were only able to save his life after removing part of his skull. As the result of repetitive blunt trauma to his head throughout his playing career, Scott is now confined to a wheelchair and can only communicate through a specially adapted keyboard.

Scott´s mother – Diane – made a claim for school injury compensation against the San Marcos Unified School District, alleging that a lack of care by the football coaching staff had been responsible for Scott´s injury, and that Scott had complained of headaches to the team´s athletic trainer several weeks before which had caused him to miss practice.

Diane´s claim was supported by a teammate of Scott´s, who testified in a deposition that warning signs of Scott´s condition had been ignored and that Scott had asked the head coach if he could sit out from the game a few minutes before it began as he was feeling unwell.

After considering the evidence presented to them, the San Marcos Unified School District agreed to a head injury at school compensation settlement of 4.4 million dollars without admission of liability.