The story that broke yesterday about a teenager suing WWE, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Paul "Triple H" Levesque over in injury sustained in 2000 has gone national today, as it was picked up by Reuters. You can read the full lawsuit here (PDF).
In May of 2000, the main event of the WWF Judgment Day PPV event was the now-famous Iron Man Match between The Rock and Triple H. As happened relatively often back then, the wrestlers brawled into the crowd. As they were deep into the crowd, it looks like several fans were knocked over in the process via the domino effect. Ronald Basham III, 18, who was 7 at the time, says that he suffered a severe leg injury as a result of the incident. From the article:
"(World Wrestling Entertainment) didn't even pay for the ambulance that took the boy from the arena to the hospital," Berman said.
The suit alleges WWE didn't stage the match properly or provide proper security. Both wrestlers are accused of "reckless, willful and wanton conduct."
The boy's family contacted WWE "off and on" over the years over Basham's continued knee and leg pain but the company "never made a reasonable offer," Berman said.
The attorney said the family has racked up $37,000 in medical bills stemming from the injury. The latest challenge involved surgery for a dislocated patella that left the teenager with a permanent partial disability.
After years of thinking the boy would grow out of it, Berman said the family filed suit Monday. Because of Basham's age when the injury happened, Berman said the suit was not covered by the statute of limitations.
I skimmed through the lawsuit and it was pretty standard stuff, though "Jean Paul Levesque" being given as an alias for Triple H was pretty amusing. Given the plaintiff's age and the surgery being recent, it doesn't seem terribly outrageous, so I would think that extensive medical records dating back to the incident would be their strongest evidence. That said, it's probably a good idea to be skeptical, and WWE will probably try their best to see if there's any other potential cause of knee problems, but their insurance would easily cover beyond the medical bills if they wanted to make it go away.