Florida School Board Approves $2 Million Settlement Following Prep School Football Accident

In 2013, Sean McNamee suffered a traumatic head injury when playing catch with his Warton High School teammates. Now, the Hillsborough County School Board has approved a record $2 million dollar settlement for McNamee and his family to cover his medical care and insurance costs.

As The Tampa Tribune reports, the school board will pay the family $300,000 and then take the family's claims to the state legislature to pay the remaining $1.7 million. $300,000 is the maximum amount of money agencies are allowed to pay out under state law.

Sean McNamee was 16 at the time of his accident. In the process of playing catch with teammates, he slipped and hit his head against machinery used to paint the football field. He was not wearing a helmet. Remarkably, he was then left alone and unaccounted for up to half an hour, the McNamees' lawyer asserted. After being transported to Florida Hospital Tampa, doctors found that the fall had fractured his skull.

"Every day is a struggle, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a headache, but it’s significant," Sean told reporters outside the school board hearing. "I’m just building myself up day by day, getting ahead in school and trying to succeed and do my best."

Insurance for Future Football Players

As part of the settlement, the school board will add $1 million dollars to the insurance coverage for all its student-athletes. This because part of McNamees' suit cited breach of contract-- Florida High School Athletics Association bylaws require a $1 million general liability insurance policy for student athletes. However, once medical costs started to roll in, the McNamees' discovered that Sean was covered by no such policy.

The Hillsborough County School Board will also put in place "The McNamee Protocol"-- a new staff protocol that will help monitor and assess students after they sustain a head injury. "Sean has been through a lot and we want to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other kids in our care," Superintendent Jeff Eakins told the press. "We’re doing everything we can to ensure we have the proper protocols in place to make sure things like this are prevented in the future."

Have you or a loved one suffered an injury due to the actions of someone else? If so, we encourage you to contact us at Smith & Stallworth, Attorneys at Law. Our aggressive Tampa personal injury attorneys have more than two decades of legal experience. Over that time, they've recovered millions of dollars on behalf of our injured clients and are ready to bring the same diligent and effective advocacy to you and your injury claim today.

Want to learn more about how our firm can help you during this difficult time? Contact us to request a free initial consultation.