Clark County Jury Awards $20 Million to Teen Hurt When a Swing Set Crossbar Fell on His Head

On a day in 2013, a 15-year-old boy sat down on a swing at the playground in Lamplight Village at Centennial Springs, a homeowners association community in Las Vegas, to send a text message. A 42-pound metal crossbar of the swing set broke loose from about eight feet up, landed on his head and crushed the left side of his skull. He suffered a traumatic brain injury.

The damage did not end with the hospital stay. By the time of trial he was 20 and living with headaches that were at times crippling, migraines, memory loss, muscle spasms and movement problems in his right arm. Testimony also described a substantially higher risk of developing dementia later in life.

The lawsuit, filed in 2014, rested on the association's maintenance record. The swing set's installer had offered a monthly safety and inspection plan, and the board turned it down. Evidence at trial showed the same kind of swing set had failed at the community at least twice in the years before, and that the board had paid for other repairs around the neighborhood while leaving the playground equipment without a regular inspection plan. A former board president testified that he would not put new safety measures in place without a formal study, even after a child had been hurt.

Sean Claggett of Claggett & Sykes and Al Lasso of Lasso Injury Law represented the young man. They argued that the board violated the community's own governing documents, Nevada law, the manufacturer's maintenance requirements and Consumer Product Safety Commission standards. Kevin Brown of Brown Bonn & Friedman defended the association. Judge Joe Hardy presided over the week-long trial, which began in early February 2018.

The jury found the association liable and awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages, for a total of $20 million. Punitive damages in Nevada require a finding of conscious disregard of safety, and the jurors made that finding against the board. Under the state's punitive damages statute, an award of that size was within the allowed ratio to the compensatory award.

The association's liability insurer, QBE, covered only a fraction of the verdict, which raised worry among the community's homeowners about their own exposure. Afterward, the young man signed an agreement under which he would not pursue homeowners or their houses. In exchange, the association agreed to pursue its insurer for failing to settle within the policy limits, with any recovery going to him.

The association appealed the judgment, the order amending it and the award of fees and costs to the Nevada Supreme Court. In January 2020 the court dismissed the consolidated appeals on the parties' stipulation, leaving the verdict in place. The association's separate fight with QBE reached the Nevada Supreme Court on a writ petition, which was also dismissed by stipulation in October 2022.