BENTON – Edwardsville school district denies that it committed medical battery against golfer Bailey Vorachek by burning her back with a pain reliever.
The district filed a motion on Feb. 8 to dismiss a battery allegation from a civil complaint over application of a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator.
The suit also alleges negligence.
Vorachek filed the suit in U. S. district court in December, claiming high school nursing staff applied a stimulation unit to bare skin but didn’t observe or monitor it.
Her counsel Grey Chatham Jr. of Belleville claimed staff failed to set a timing device.
He claimed the unit left scars that would remain for the rest of her life.
Chatham stated Vorachek was born in 2004 and resides in Texas.
School district counsel Abby Bandy of Edwardsville responded to the complaint by pleading that Vorachek failed to state a claim for battery.
“To recover in a medical battery case, the injured party must establish that there was no consent to the medical treatment performed, the treatment was against the injured party’s will, or the treatment substantially varied from the consent granted,” Bandy wrote.
“Plaintiff does not allege in her complaint that she did not consent to the application of the unit by Edwardsville’s athletic trainers and nursing staff,” she wrote.
“In fact, plaintiff alleges that she sought treatment from Edwardsville’s staff,” she added.
“Plaintiff does allege that Edwardsville High School failed to set a timing device for application of the unit which resulted in a prolonged exposure to the machine, and the prolonged exposure was unauthorized physical contact,” Bandy wrote.
“This is insufficient to state a claim for battery on the basis that the treatment substantially varied from the consent given,” she added.
“Illinois law provides that a defendant is not liable for acts substantially similar to those which are consented to and will instead only be liable under a theory of battery if they went beyond the consent given to perform substantially different acts,” she continued.
Senior District Judge Phil Gilbert presides.