Wrestling Coach Slammed Greenwich Village Student: Lawsuit

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — The family of a student at a Greenwich Village middle school recently filed a lawsuit against a Lower Manhattan Community Center, accusing an employee of slamming the student to the ground while demonstrating a move during a wrestling practice.

The incident happened in November 2019 when the student, who at the time was in the 6th grade, was participating in an after-school wrestling practice in the gymnasium at the Morton School at 75 Morton Street, according to court documents.

The lawsuit says that the maneuver consisted of the wrestling coach placing the sixth-grader in a hold and "inexplicably picking him up and slamming him to the floor, causing the infant plaintiff to strike his head on an unprotected/unpadded section of the floor."

The term infant is used for anyone under the age of 18 included in a lawsuit.

The sixth-grader weighed less than 100 pounds at the time of the incident, according to the suit.

At issue is whether the coach violated his duty to adequately provide guidance, supervision, and care for the sixth-grade Morton School student.

The wrestling coach named in the suit was an employee of the Manhattan Youth Recreation Center, which is a community center at 120 Warren Street. Manhattan Youth did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

"The infant became sick, sore and disabled, sustained grievous personal injuries; suffered and will continue to suffer great pain and anguish in body and mind," reads a section of the lawsuit, explaining the injuries the sixth graders suffered from the incident.

The suit was filed on July 28, 2021, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York by the father of the student against the Manhattan Youth Recreation Center. The Lower Manhattan recreation is the only named defendant on the suit.

The lawsuit concludes with the plaintiff, the father of the sixth-grader, demanding "an amount in excess of jurisdictional limits of all lower courts" for the costs and disbursements that have stemmed from the body slam.