LEON COUNTY, Fla. — A jury is ordering the Leon County School Board to pay thousands of dollars to a former student who was hurt during a "black light" pep rally.
Jennifer Huynh attended Leon High's pep rally in January of 2017, just two months after she broke a hip during a car accident. During the pep rally, a mosh pit broke out in the senior section that caused students to fall down the bleachers “like dominoes.”
As a result of this, Huynh, who was several rows below where the mosh pit started, was knocked to the ground. She aggravated her existing hip fractures and suffered a new broken bone in that same area.
According to Huynh's lawyers, the pep rally right before the "black light" also had a mosh pip break out in the same area, however, they say that the students who started that mosh pit were never identified or punished.
This led the jury to award her almost $100,000.
However, the school district was found to be only partially responsible, so it will have to pay just over $67,000. The rest will come from the unnamed Leon High students involved in the incident.
"As such, the Plaintiff’s claim was that Leon High was negligent for allowing the very next pep rally to take place in the dark rather than in the light and with heightened security," Huynh's lawyers assert,
Huynh's lawyer further commented on the case saying:
"The jury was very thorough and deliberated for several hours. They were asked to compensate Ms. Huynh for her past and future pain and suffering, so the verdict was appropriate in that it has to cover the initial pain and the problems expected over next 60 years of her life."
A Leon County School spokesperson has declined our request for comment.
