Attorneys gathering evidence regarding child’s death at KOA
Published 12:00 am Thursday, February 4, 2010
Attorneys involved in the civil suit filed by the mother of a 4-year-old boy who drowned last summer at Bowling Green Kampgrounds of America are in the process of building their respective cases.
No court hearings are scheduled for the suit, which was filed Oct. 19 in Warren Circuit Court and assigned to Warren Circuit Judge Steve Wilson.
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Valen Humphrey has claimed that the negligence of the campground and its owners led to the death of her son, Triston Morrison, in the campground’s swimming pool on June 13.
Her suit names Three Springs Management Group LLC, Kampground Management LLC and owners Danny and Yvonne Goad and Paul and Susan VonWebb.
According to the complaint, Humphrey dropped off her son at KOA to be with his family for the day, and he was able to access the pool because the latch on the gate to the pool area was broken.
Family members were unable to find Triston after he went missing because the water in the pool was too dirty for them to see the boy in the bottom of the pool, the suit claims. He was discovered by a swimmer who bumped into his body.
A June 16 inspection of the pool by the state Division of Public Health Protection and Safety found numerous violations, and a report by Jan Brown of the division’s Swimming and Bathing Facilities Section has become the basis by and large for the suit.
“Upon arrival at the facility the gate allowing entry into the facility was not latched,” the report states. “When entering the pool area the gate failed to self latch. After 50 repeated attempts of opening and closing the entrance gate the gate failed to latch all 50 times.”
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Additional violations listed in the report include findings that the facility’s operator, Paul VonWebb, was not available when state inspectors arrived at the pool after it had opened, no sign was posted on the gate stating that no one may enter the facility alone or swim alone, the only entrance to the game and exercise rooms required entrance through the pool area, and the pool water was cloudy and main drain not clearly visible.
Bowling Green attorney Mike Breen, who is representing Humphrey, said that both sides are in the discovery phase, gathering evidence for their cases.
“We have pulled all of the county health department records of inspections on this pool going back to 1998 and it has a history of violations,” Breen said.
Breen said the pool was ordered closed by the local health department in 2007 because of cloudy water.
Depositions of witnesses will be scheduled as the case moves forward, according to Breen.
Attorneys representing the defendants have denied that the campground or its owners are liable for Triston’s death.
Bowling Green attorney Thomas Kerrick, representing the VonWebbs and Kampground Management Group, filed a response to the complaint Dec. 23 denying Humphrey’s allegations and claiming that Humphrey is unqualified or improperly qualified to administer Triston’s estate and thus should not be allowed to file suit on his behalf.
Further, the response asserts that if the plaintiffs suffered damages as alleged in the original complaint, that was caused or brought about by negligence on Humphrey’s part or by the acts of someone other than the VonWebbs or KMG.
“We have denied any negligence on our part,” Kerrick said. “The parties have discussed trying to get some things scheduled and nothing is in place yet.”
Breen said it is likely that a number of motions will be filed in the near future to ask for a trial date and set other deadlines relating to getting the case heard before a jury.