Utah tennis coach dodges negligence claims over choking student

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: From Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor", 185 · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge in Utah ruled that Park City High School tennis coach Lani Wilcox was acting within the scope of her employment when she put a former student in a chokehold after the student slapped her in 2022, dismissing negligence claims against her. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball found that coaching duties extend to restraining players physically, citing Utah's government immunity law.

Genevieve Olson, then a minor, says she was downgraded from varsity to junior varsity, went to compose herself in a restroom, and was confronted by Wilcox on her return. Olson slapped Wilcox out of fear, she says, and Wilcox choked her hard enough to restrict her breathing and took her phone.

Battery, assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against Wilcox survive, as do amendable civil rights claims. Wilcox also faces reinstated state criminal charges for aggravated child abuse after the Utah Supreme Court found her belief that Olson posed an ongoing threat was not objectively reasonable.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A judge just told us that choking a student can count as teaching tennis, so long as it happens on the clock. That is the kind of legal reasoning that makes perfect sense on paper and none at all if you picture it happening to your own kid. The criminal case is still alive, which is the only part of this story that still smells like accountability.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Myst · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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