$14.6 Million Settlement Against Tahoma School District for Catastrophic Youth Football Brain Injury

On October 12, 2006, Zackery Lystedt was playing middle school football for Tahoma Junior High School in Maple Valley, Washington. Late in the first half, he took a blow to the head that left him dazed. Coaches sent him back onto the field twice more that evening. Sixty seconds after the final whistle, he collapsed on the sideline.

Doctors at Harborview Medical Center found that Zack had suffered what physicians call second impact syndrome. His brain, still vulnerable from the initial concussion, hemorrhaged when it sustained a second hit before the first injury had healed. The resulting swelling required emergency surgery. Zack spent seven days on life support, months in a coma, and more than nine months unable to speak. He relearned to walk using a cane, requiring around-the-clock care and ongoing physical therapy years after the injury.

The Lystedt family retained Richard H. Adler of Adler Giersch, PS, a firm that concentrates in brain and catastrophic injury cases, along with co-counsel Mike Nelson, who had himself settled an earlier 'second impact' football brain-injury case and was a brain injury survivor. The legal theory centered on the school's failure to recognize the signs of concussion and its decision to return a visibly injured child to contact play without any medical evaluation.

The Tahoma School District initially refused to disclose the settlement amount, citing a confidentiality agreement both parties had signed. Washington appellate courts, however, have held that public entities must disclose the dollar amounts of settlements, and the district's own attorney released the figure of $14.6 million in response to a public-records request by The Seattle Times. The settlement funds were placed in a trust account to cover Zack's medical care, therapeutic needs, and special educational services through age 22, per the agreement.

The case triggered immediate legislative action. Governor Christine Gregoire signed the Zackery Lystedt Law in May 2009, the same year as the settlement. The statute requires that any youth athlete under 18 who is removed from play for a suspected concussion can return only with written clearance from a licensed health professional. Washington was the first state in the country to enact such a law. Within three years, 34 additional states had adopted similar legislation, and the law eventually spread to all 50 states, changing youth sports safety rules across the country.