San Marcos Unifed rejects wrestler's claim; Rick Rinear at SDCOE-JPA instructed them to do so

The San Diego County Office of Education instructs all school districts who buy its Joint Powers Authority insurance coverage to reject all claims.

See Logan Jenkins on why this type of case needs to go before a jury.
See all San Marcos Unified posts.

Prep wrestler sues opponent over body slams
By Brent Schrotenboer
SDUT
April 22, 2011

A Fallbrook High School wrestler has sued an opposing wrestler at Mission Hills High, claiming he was badly injured by body slams and other illegal moves during a wrestling match in January.

Shane Perine, a sophomore at Fallbrook, filed suit this month in San Diego Superior Court. He seeks unspecified damages against Mission Hills wrestler Devin Coley and the San Marcos Unified School District, which includes Mission Hills High.

Perine’s suit says that Coley’s illegal moves were “repeated by him over and over throughout the match" at Mission Hills on Jan. 27. It says that the referees and district employees who oversaw the match did nothing to stop it except award a point to Perine. What they should have done instead was stop the match, the suit says.

Coley “went off the chart, doing body slams and moves that are not only illegal but dangerous,” said Perine’s attorney, Paul Rolf Jensen. “We think this is important because it was called to the coach’s attention, and he ignored it. That’s a pretty significant problem.”

Jensen also said the incident was recorded on video.

Coley, Mission Hills coach David LaVine and San Marcos Superintendent Kevin Holt didn’t return messages seeking comment. The school district rejected the claim at its regular board meeting in March.

Jensen said his client has a spinal injury because of the incident and has undergone several MRI exams because of it. Jensen also said Perine can’t play sports anymore.

“It’s not crippling but painful,” Jensen said.

Perine also names the San Diego Section of the California Interscholastic Federation as a defendant in the suit. The section supervises the referees.

“If the jury found liability, which we expect, I think there would be general agreement the value of the case would be somewhere in the range of a quarter of a million dollars,” Jensen said.