Collinsville Extreme Fast Pitch is denying responsibility for a woman's injuries allegedly sustained in muddy conditions at a softball tournament last year.
Terry L. Meyers filed suit June 27 in Madison County Circuit Court against the Collinsville Area Recreation District and the Collinsville Extreme Club.
According to Meyers, she was watching her daughter participate in a fast pitch softball tournament June 30, 2013, and on the way to the restroom when the incident occurred. She claims the tournament had been postponed the day before due to torrential downpours. And although many people assumed the tournament would again be delayed on June 30, she claims, the defendants attempted to make the playing fields playable and resumed the games on June 30.
Collinsville Extreme Fast Pitch answered the complaint on Sept. 2, saying it will show that plaintiff's acident and alleged injuries were caused by a natural accumulation of water.
The organization, represented by Stephen Moore of Galloway, Johnson, Tompkins, Burr and Smith in St. Louis, also says that Meyer's negligence in failing to exercise care for her own safety exceeds 50 percent of the total combined proximate cause and is therefore barred from recovery.
"Collinsville Extreme Fast Pitch Club will show that the surface and area where plaintiff alleges she fell were not in an unreasonably dangerous condition and were, in any event, open and obvious...," Moore wrote.
Meyers blames the defendants for contributing to her injuries, saying they failed to undertake the same kind of reparative conduct for patrons on the premises as it did for participants in the tournament and took no action to remedy the defect.
In her two-count complaint, Meyers seeks a judgment of more than $100,000, plus costs and other relief the court deems just. She is being represented by D. Jeffrey Ezra of Ezra and Associates in Collinsville.
The case was originally assigned to Circuit Court Andreas Matoesian.
Ezra filed a motion for substitution on Sept. 8. Illinois Code of Civil Procedure provides for a substitution of judge as a matter of right when a party timely files a request for substitution.
Madison County Circuit Court case number 14-L-922.