Soccer Player To Sue East Hampton Schools For 2019 Injury On The Field

A state court has given a Melville man permission to proceed with a lawsuit against the East Hampton School District for head injuries he suffered in a soccer game at East Hampton High School in 2019.

Michael Lee Jr. was a student at Half Hollow Hills High School in 2019 and was playing in a soccer game against East Hampton’s team on September 5 when an East Hampton player shoved another Half Hollow Hills player into him. The two players’ heads hit, and Lee suffered face and head injuries.

Lee was examined by East Hampton trainers and an ambulance was called. Ambulance personnel deemed that his head injuries could be dangerous and called for a Medevac helicopter to fly Lee to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery and ultimately had to have a metal plate implanted in his head, the legal claim against East Hampton states. He missed a month of school and suffered ill effects of his injuries for much longer.

An attorney for Lee said that the East Hampton player who caused the collision between the two Half Hollow Hills players was being “overly aggressive” and had been cited by the game’s referees with a “yellow card” warning earlier for inappropriate play.

In a legal filing, the second Half Hollow Hills player, who was not seriously injured, said in the claim that the East Hampton player had been angry because his team was losing.

While the law requires that a tort lawsuit be filed within 90 days of an incident, the attorney for Lee petitioned state court in late 2020 to be allowed to file suit against East Hampton after the statute of limitations had expired on the basis that Lee had not become an adult capable of retaining an attorney until December 5, 2020, and that the lag in time would not cause any undue or unfair hurdles to the school district’s defense.

In a January 12 ruling, Justice Vincent Martorana agreed, granting Lee permission to file the lawsuit against the school district. The ruling makes no examination of the merits of the case presented by Lee’s attorney itself.

The claim presented to the court argues that the school should be held liable for the injuries Lee suffered because the East Hampton player’s aggressive play had been spotlighted already by the referees but he was allowed to continue playing. The school’s representatives should have been aware of the “foreseeable dangers presented by the fact that one of its players was unduly and unnecessarily aggressive,” Lee’s claim states.