Tower fall yields $4.75M verdict

NEWS ARTICLE EXCERPT

By: Fred Horlbeck, South Carolina Lawyers Weekly, June 29, 2009

A York County jury has awarded $4.75 million to a former Fort Mill High School student and his family after lawyers argued that he was paralyzed in a climbing tower accident because of negligence.

Larry Keeter, a Fort Mill High senior at the time, claimed he fell 25 feet to theground during the school’s “Spring Fling” field day in May 2006 after a fellow student lost her grip on the rope supporting him.

Keeter, now 20, suffered a fractured vertebra that left him a paraplegic . He was just weeks away from graduation.

On June 19, the jury awarded Keeter and his parents $3.64 million in actual damages and $1.1 million in punitives on claims of strict liability, general negligence, products liability negligence and loss of service.

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Contact South Carolina Lawyers Weekly, www.sclawyersweekly.com, for the full article.