Former High School Wrestler Sues School District For Damages From MMA Fight At School
MMA is in the news again for the wrong reasons. This time a high school wrestler who willingly participated in an MMA style fight in the wrestling room at the school, at the time of a canceled wrestling practice, is suing the school and the school district for financial damages relating to the medical costs of injuries sustained during the bout. The details of the story come from KansasCity.com.
Samuel Gomez, a junior and former member of the wrestling team at Blue Springs, filed the lawsuit that seeks damages in excess of $25,000 against the school district. According to the lawsuit, around Oct. 1, 2008, a preseason workout was canceled, but some wrestlers remained in the practice room. One team member pulled out MMA-style sparring gloves while another young man shot video footage of wrestlers partaking in an MMA fight.
According to Dan Baylard, the Gomez family’s attorney, a Blue Springs assistant wrestling coach, James Williamson, watched and cheered. Mixed martial arts fighting is a full contact combat sport that combines boxing, wrestling and martial arts.
During his fight, Gomez suffered two broken teeth, and another tooth was knocked out. Later that night, Gomez spent two hours in a dentist’s chair, had a rod placed in his mouth and later needed two root-canal surgeries that cost more than $7,000. Gomez’s family expects to spend at least $20,000 more on future surgeries.
The lawsuit names Williamson, head wrestling coach Mike Hagerty, known as “Hag” to his athletes, activities director Tom Round, principal Dave Adams and superintendent Paul Kinder as defendants.
************ The lawsuit alleges that the Blue Springs wrestling program promoted extreme fighting and created Wildcat (school’s mascot) wrestling T-shirts that featured the Ultimate Fighting Championship emblem. Also, the school once employed a wrestling assistant coach, Matt Cox, who has since started a career as an MMA fighter.
Furthermore, Baylard contends that it is the Gomez family’s belief that MMA-style fighting had been going on at least a year before the October 2008 incident.
“The principal did something to stop that,” Baylard said. “Obviously, it didn’t work.”
A BloodyElbow Member found video of a fight from the high school in question.
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Moral of this story. Where a mouthguard dude.
Actually, I thought the article was pretty tame…no referrences to “Human Cock-Fighting” or “No-Holds Barred” fighting. It actually used to term “MMA” and explained it as “full contact combat sport that combines boxing, wrestling and martial arts.”
That said, I’m a teacher…the fact that an assistant coach was there, allowing video to be shot (not allowed without parent consent, by the way), and caught on tape cheering them on….very dumb. He will lose his job.
The parents will win this, no matter how stupid their kid was. (No kid bashing!!!)
If this would of happened off of school property they would get nothing, but since It’s on school property odds are good they will get there money. Does a Mutual fight between both parties not work in this case? Usually if you agree on terms to fight someone you can’t sue them or where your fighting for damages.
god dam it can nobody take responsibility for their own actions any more, the guy allowed him self to participate. so why the f’ing can he and his family not just accept it was his own fault, instead of suing every f’er else. What an ar$$.
Sorry about the language but this sort of thing just make me mad.
$h’t just happens some times! deal with it!
The problem is, these are children we’re talking about…yes, High School athletes are still considered children. An adult is supposed to be responsible for the behavior (and most important) safety of his students. This dude violated rule # 1 of being an educator…he put a kids safetly at risk by not actively trying to put an end to the situation. (and standing there encouraging it is even douche-ier) If they were adults I could understand the whole “take personal responsibility” angle…but, these are kids.
I accept the whole kid angle you’re coming from and the teacher should be sacked. But the Childs parent firstly allowed the child to participate in an extreme contact sport in the first place which the same could have happened. Taking a school precious school funding away from the many other participating children is just wrong (insurance or not).
It’s just lame that we live in this whole suing culture.
As I said before $hit just happens, accept it, deal with it, and make the child (who look over 16) to pay for his own extremely expensive dental work him self.
IMO.
Just because they are considered children does not actually make them children. Thats just labels with numbers. The truth of it is that they both knew they were going to punching eachother in the face, they weren’t wearing mouthguards, and were basically idiots. The broken teeth is punishment for bein an idiot and I hope they get no mon whatsoever.
What do you say to the tennis team that gets cut? Oh sorry, but two idiots decided to punch eachother in the face so they got paid for it…..how does that work?
The kid is probably a minor… that’s the only thing that keeps him from having to take responsibility in this case.
If I were the parent, I would make the kid pay get a job and pay his own medical bills. I definitely wouldn’t sue the school, it’s the kid’s own dumb fault.
This is crazy how long did the fight go before it was stopped. What if kid would have died. If the parents knew it was going on for a year they had to know boy was involved, now he gets hurt and want compensated for his stupidity. If they actually thought this was a problem before they should have called the law or the local paper to inform other parents that would have ended it.
DITO!
My only question is, WHO made the kid fight that is suing? If he made the decision to fight he can get a part time job and be responsible for his actions. I agree that IF teacher was there he/she should have stopped this, but those 2 young men made a choice to fight.
Be responsible for you actions, don’t complain after the fact.
there is no ref, no cage/ring, no judges, no corner men, no clock/rest, they are wearing socks!! mouth peices ect..
IMO This is not an MMA “style” fight, this is a room full of A’holes were to guys are fighting each other with gloves on.
its MMA because of the gloves???
so if i put on “MMA style” gloves and start punching people, am i a crazy MMA guy? or just an aszhole with some gloves on?
Most true thing anything has posted yet. just cause they wear gloave doesnt mean they aree mma fighting. well then any fight in school should be a mma fight. like just beacause you wear baggy jeans doesnt mean you think your ganster. its the same thing. these parent are usin mma as a scapegoat
BAD SUPERVISION !
I’m going to pound home the fact that these are children. Again, these are children…NOT rational adults. Yes, the kid was incredibly stupid, and used VERY poor judgement…BUT…when you send your kids to school, it is EXPECTED that as long as there is ADULT supervision, your child will be safe. If this was done outside of school, or if they snuck off somewhere…that’s one thing. Still stupid! But…the adults who run the school are RESPONSIBLE (to the best of their ability!) to keep children SAFE. The meat-head adult standing around encouraging kids to duke it out while being filmed is not just an employee of the school…if he is a teahcer (which most coached are) he is certified by the stae, who’s laws strickly say that all educators are CHILD ADVOCATES who are responsible for the CHILDREN under their care. By standing around and letting this happen, the adult is basically saying that it’s OK. Dumb, dumb, and dumb…with a little dumb thrown in. You want this guy watching your kids???
you right
these are high school kids who be suspended for fighting. they are kids but they understand fighting is against school rules and they chose to break the rules. the school is at fault legally casue the wrestling room should be closed unless there are adults there. these kids willingly broke the rules and should be punished by the school for doing so.
You’re right dude about the teacher as I have said before, sake the non-advocating fool. But blaming it on MMA and suing for the kids teeth is a joke
It’s easy to say that the kid was at fault. However, if the coaches were involved, it most likely pressured most, if not all, of these kids into doing this. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to being pressured due to their need to “fit in”. I’m sure any kid who didn’t participate was mocked by their peers and felt that they were letting down the coaches as they witness them cheer everybody else on.
Face it, the parent and kid deserves to be reimbursed for medical expenses. The coaches deserve to be unemployed. And those of you mocking this kid have forgotten what the teenage years were like.
No I haven’t, and if I did something stupid and got my teeth knocked out, my parents wouldn’t sue someone else for not keeping me from doing something stupid.
If this happened to me my dad’s response would have been, “Well, what did you think would happen?”
It would be one thing if this were a bullying type situation, where a kid was getting bullied and picked on, and the parents went to the school to try to get the bullying stopped, and they did nothing. Then the child was beaten by the bully and was injured. That’s not the case, the child willingly engaged in the activity.
The number one top priority of a parent, is to teach their children how to be adults. The biggest part of being an adult that seems to be lost on mine and the current generation is taking responsibility for your own actions. Our culture has too much of a victim mentality, and this lawsuit and the way that some of you are wanting to blame the schools for this prove that.
I agree Justin, if I came home missing teeth and told my pops what happened, would get called a dumba$$ and be grounded for at least 2 weeks. As well as pay for my own medical bills. I agree the coach in the room should face punishment for his actions, but the school should not be held responsible for the dental bills. If a school was sued for every fight that broke out, we would not have any high school institutes any more due to bankruptcy. Gotta take an a$$ whoopin and learn to move on.
Ya see uneducated people are going to look at “Human Cock-Fighting” and relate it to MMA, little to no rule inforcement, no protection(probably a bad tape on there hands plus $hit gloves)/mouth piece, Time limit?
Its like trying to put streetball and NBA together.
So I’m guessing that Gomez lost the fight?
That’s what I was thinking
these kids and parents are stupid he willingly put the gloves on and participated in a fight quit trying to ruin things for responsible people teacher should be fired for allowing stupid kids to do this but stop trying to sue someone cuz your kid cant think on his own
Wow… ok points about taking responsibility for your own actions is well taken. And at high school kids should be beginning to do that. But when a coach is in the room encouraging you, as a high school athlete you assume the activity is ok and reasonably safe. These kids are trained as wrestlers, not ‘mma style’ fighters. And the coach knew it and should not have allowed the fight to take place. Period.
Fighting this style of match with no training in boxing, kickboxing, grappling, or all the other aspects of mma that are necessary is very dangerous. And the coach knew it if he is a mma fighter.
And as an employee of the school district, the school district is responsible for his behavior and takes on the liability for his actions.
The correct course of action is for the student to win the lawsuit (that is what insurance is for), the coach to be fired, and strict guidelines be enforced about what is and is not appropriate competition in a high school activity.
Very bad judgement and very bad decisions by everyone involved (except perhaps the guy running the camera).
Did anyone notice the picture they put up for the article is not from the mma style fight? Its from a wrestling match. Neither guy has gloves on.
And…………..?
Just found it interesting that video is available of the actual fight but not used for the article.
You should pay closer attention. I chose a picture from a wrestling match because the story is about a former wrestler getting in a fight during time slotted for wrestling practice, in the wrestling room at a high school, and suing the wrestling coach.
Further down the article, is the video that you claim I didn’t use, right in plain view.
^^^^
And then that happened,
That should clear up any confusion I believe