Hanover High School
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – A Pennsylvania school district won’t be liable for injuries a student sustained at softball practice when she was hit in the back of the neck with a line-drive.
Federal judge Joseph Saporito Jr. on Sept. 16 tossed claims made in a 2022 lawsuit against Hanover Township School District. A former student blamed coach Katherine Healey for a mishap during batting practice, but Saporito’s ruling grants her and the district summary judgment.
The plaintiff, known as A.M. in court records, was pitching from behind a protective screen but did not duck under it after throwing. When she turned around to pick a ball up, the batter hit the pitched ball right back at her.
Lawyers at Stark & Stark in Yardley tried to link the incident to past allegations of misconduct against Healey, though Saporito found they were irrelevant to A.M.’s case. He looked at a previous case of a girl being struck in the face with a softball that was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit as just a risk associated with the sport.
“A.M. was injured during a popular and widely-used softball drill in which she, and her team, were familiar,” Saporito wrote.
“Moreover, she pitched behind a pitching screen without any defects and wore a helmet for added protection.”
A.M. pitched from behind a screen 15-20 feet away from the batter and was instructed to stay behind the screen. Instead, she turned around to pick up a ball instead of ducking and was struck in the back of the neck, leading her dad to take her to the emergency room.
The incident was the subject of another lawsuit. Healey sued Luzerne County in 2023 over an investigation by the county of child abuse/serious neglect that led to her being placed on paid administrative leave.
Though a detective found the claim baseless, Luzerne County Children and Youth Services told Healey that it would enter a finding of indicated child abuse. Two other claims were subsequently filed by other minors, and all three were later determined to be unfounded.
But two women at Child Protective Services altered and sent that finding to the Bureau of Policy Programs and Operations, Healey’s lawsuit said. It claimed this was done to harm her then-candidacy for school director for the Pittston Area School District.
A stay in that case was lifted around the time Saporito issued his ruling in A.M.’s lawsuit.
