LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Attorneys for the Glendale Unified School District and a girl who says she fainted after being required to perform in hot conditions at a campus Christmas holiday recital in 2017 have agreed to try and settle the case instead of going to trial as scheduled in August.
On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa R. Jaskol approved a GUSD application for the parties to participate in a mandatory settlement conference with volunteer settlement officers with the Resolve Law LA Virtual MSC Program, a virtual project through which qualified volunteer lawyers help to resolve cases pending in the personal injury hub courts cases before they proceed to trial.
Jaskol left the final status conference on the calendar for Aug. 15 and said she will consider any verbal motions to delay the Aug. 29 trial date.
Another judge on June 26 denied a district motion to dismiss the plaintiff's case.
The girl, now 15 years old and an Altadena resident, was 10 years old and a student at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School when she became unconscious and fell down the stage steps on Dec. 8, 2017, suffering a head injury, several chipped teeth and a laceration that required 16 stitches to close.
The school is a K-6 campus and the suit alleges negligent supervision of students.
According to the suit, students were required to stand close together while they prepared to rehearse in the school auditorium.
"Causing children to stand upright for nearly one hour in hot and congested conditions was an unsafe practice and a deviation from the standard of care by instructors at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School," the plaintiffs' attorneys argued in their court papers.
No instruction was provided to the children on alternative ways to deal with the heat and exhaustion, the suit alleges.
An attorney for the district wrote in her court papers that the fainting occurred in the winter and that there was no history of students passing out or otherwise being injured in the auditorium during the rehearsals.