NYC School Unable To Dodge Lawsuit

A Bronx school board settled a lawsuit on Monday that alleged teachers at Intermediate School 219 failed to provide proper supervision of a dodgeball game, which allegedly left one 12-year-old with broken teeth, the New York Daily News reports.

According to the suit, filed by attorney Mark Weinberger on behalf of the injured student, Shane Reese, teachers at the school led more than 100 students into a dimly lit gymnasium for a dodgeball game as an "ill-conceived rainy-day activity."

Weinberger claims the children were given hard soccer balls, rather than the soft rubber balls typically used for the game, to throw at each other. Reese, who was sitting out of the game because he had just had a few teeth repaired after a car crash was allegedly struck in the face by an errant throw.

Education Department spokesman William Havemann told the news source that dodgeball in city schools has been discouraged since 2006. "We don't believe dodgeball is an appropriate activity, but there is no formal ban," he said.

In its settlement, the school board offered Reese $20,000.

According to a report in the medical journal Pediatrics, between 1997 and 2007 the number of physical education-related injuries in kids increased by 150 percent.