Camp owner moves to halt a lawsuit in teen's death
Brown Schools want an arbitrator to handle the case if parents
sue
By Jonathan Osborne
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, June 20, 2003
The owners of a Hill Country wilderness
camp where a teenager died in October have filed a pre-emptive legal
strike in an attempt to avoid litigation by the boy's family and to
keep the case in Mason County.
The Brown Schools, a Delaware corporation
with operations based in Austin, filed a petition in state District
Court in Mason County earlier this month, asking a judge to rule
that any dispute over the death of 17-year-old Chase Moody at the On
Track therapeutic wilderness program be turned over to a binding
arbitration panel.
The court filing, which names Chase's
mother and father as defendants, says the family agreed to as much
in a contract signed by Chase's mother before the teen was enrolled
in the camp.
Lawyers for the Brown Schools, which
operates youth-oriented therapeutic programs across the country,
filed the petition June 6 — the same day they met with the Moodys'
lawyers, who include Johnnie Cochran, the high-profile attorney who
successfully defended O.J. Simpson.
David McLaughlin, a lawyer in the Cochran
Firm who is working on the case, called the Brown Schools' petition
premature because the family has not sued.
"We're (still) weighing our options," he
said Thursday.
Howard Falkenberg, the Brown Schools'
spokesman in Austin, said company officials were aware that the
Moodys are considering legal action and filed the petition to make
clear their opinion that any dispute with the family should be
handled outside the courtroom.
Should a judge disagree, Falkenberg said,
the company at least wanted to establish grounds for the case to be
considered in Mason County.
"That's where the admissions agreement
was signed, and that's where his management was, and that's where
his unfortunate death occurred," Falkenberg said. "All those things
just seem to argue that that's where the matter should be handled."
Chase, who lived with his mother in
Richardson, was sent to the camp to work out anger issues and other
behavioral problems. He died there Oct. 14 after being physically
restrained by at least three camp staff members because of what the
company said was a violent outburst.
According to an autopsy, Chase suffocated
on his own vomit, a report disputed by the Brown Schools.
Officials with the company have
repeatedly said their staff acted appropriately in handling the
situation.
State investigators disagree and have
accused the staff members involved of physical abuse in connection
with the death. The state also cited the camp for 28 violations of
state standards after a licensing investigation of the incident.
The staff members are appealing the
findings, as is the Brown Schools, even though the company closed
the camp for unrelated reasons shortly after Chase's death. He was
the fifth youth to die after being restrained in the company's Texas
facilities since 1988.
Alan Rau, a professor at the University
of Texas School of Law and an expert in arbitration, said the
likelihood of any potential case going to an arbitration panel could
come down to technical issues, including how the judge interprets
the admissions contract Chase's mother signed.
"There were two things, if I were Johnnie
Cochran, I would say. One is that Texas personal injury can't be
arbitrated under a pre-dispute clause unless you have the signatures
of the lawyers, which you never get," Rau said. "Another argument
occurs to me that I would make — if I were Johnnie Cochran — is that
the clause doesn't cover this kind of thing."
However, Rau said, there also are
questions as to whether federal laws, which can trump state statutes
and tend to favor arbitration agreements, apply.
"It's not a slam dunk either way," Rau
said. "There are arguments that could be made both ways."
josborne@statesman.com; 445-3621
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