The parents of a man who suffered brain damage after being beaten at Dodger Stadium last year is fighting to move forward on their personal injury lawsuit against the bankrupt team.
Bryan Stow was severely beaten on March 31, 2011, in a stadium parking lot after the opening-day game ended against the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers have filed a plan to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and sought to throw out Stow’s parents’ claims. The Dodgers argued that stadium personnel could not have prevented the incident and that the team wasn’t liable for the injuries.
Stow’s parents filed a personal injury lawsuit against the Dodgers and team owner Frank McCourt on May 24, 2011, in Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court. The case, which has been stayed as to the claims against the Dodgers, seeks compensatory and punitive damages. Stow’s parents, Elizabeth and David Stow, are members of the unsecured creditors’ committee in the Dodgers bankruptcy.
In Feb. 22 filings, their lawyer argued that their lawsuit should not be thrown out but instead sent to Los Angeles County Superior Court, where Judge Abraham Khan is overseeing claims against the other defendants, including team owner Frank McCourt.
The lawyer, Mark Minuti, a partner in the Wilmington, Del., office of Philadelphia’s Saul Ewing, added that the Dodgers expect to resolve the Stow lawsuit through insurance coverage, not money from the bankruptcy estate. He noted that the team has 19 insurance policies affording more than $300 million in coverage.
“We’re saying, ‘Send it back — this isn’t going to cost the bankruptcy anything,’ ” said co-counsel Thomas Girardi of Girardi Keese in Los Angeles. “ And we’ll handle all this in the California court with the insurance that covers the Dodgers for an event like this.”
Dodgers spokeswoman Stef Goodsell defended the team’s filing.
“Nothing in the filings by Mr. Stow change the reality that the Bankruptcy Court has jurisdiction to throw out Mr. Stow’s claim in its entirety,” she wrote via e-mail.
A hearing on the motions was scheduled for March 7.
Minuti declined to comment, referring calls to his co-counsel Thomas Girardi of Girardi Keese in Los Angeles. Girardi did not return a call for comment.
The case filed by Stow’s parents was stayed when the Dodgers filed for bankruptcy on June 27, 2011. On July 22, 2011, the Los Angeles County, Calif., district attorney’s office charged two men with beating Stow.
On Feb. 3, the Dodgers moved to throw out the Stow lawsuit, arguing insufficient evidence of liability against the team as owner of the stadium. In particular, Stow’s parents had alleged that the stadium lacked sufficient security on opening day.
“The Stow Claim is, when stripped to its core, based on the faulty premise that a landowner is an insurer of the safety of persons on its property,” wrote Dodgers attorney Robert Brady of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor in Wilmington. “That is not the law in California.”
On opening day, the stadium had a “robust” security presence and received no complaints about the men subsequently charged with Stow’s beating, he wrote. Furthermore, no evidence indicated that increased stadium lighting would have prevented the attack or that, on that day, the Dodgers sold beer at half-price. The Dodgers disputed that their conduct was “despicable” enough to warrant punitive damages.
“The undisputed evidence confirms that the Dodgers had no reason to know about or anticipate the events that led to Mr. Stow’s injuries,” Brady wrote.
In their response, Stow’s parents argued that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Delaware lacked authority to enter final judgment on a personal injury claim and, even if he does, should not rule on the Dodgers’ motion until they have a chance to conduct discovery.
They pointed to potential evidence in support of their case against the Dodgers.
“Stow’s friends made several attempts to locate the security assigned to their section but were never able to do so,” Minuti wrote. “Security eventually arrived but only after the suspects had fled and Stow had sustained permanent injuries that would forever impact his life.”
The security problem isn’t limited to opening day, Girardi said. “We’ve gotten 200 letters and e-mails from people that said we would never go back to Dodger stadium — not because of our incident but because of how dangerous it is.”
As for punitive damages, Stow’s parents noted that Kahn, the judge in Los Angeles, refused to throw out those claims against the other defendants.
Minuti asked Gross to abstain from ruling on the Dodgers’ motion and to lift an existing stay in the case so that his clients can proceed with discovery.
Contact Amanda Bronstad at [email protected].
