Personal Injury Law

Chicago Personal Injury: Man Sues Former High School Teammates for 1999 Hazing

10 years after an infamous hazing incident that occurred at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, the hazing victim, Stamatios Shinas, is suing the school, a number of high school football coaches, and four former teammates for Chicago personal injury.

Shinas, now 25, says the emotional pain and psychological trauma from the 1999 hazing incident continue to haunt him and he still sees a therapist because of what happened. He says he has trust issues.

Shinas was a sophomore when he made the football varsity team. He says that team members told him that the hazing was an initiation process that all varsity members had to go through. He says he was sexually abused and hazed three times and that teammates physically abused him, sodomizing him with a broomstick and a banana.

In his Cook County Circuit Court personal injury lawsuit, Shinas is suing the Lincolnshire high school, 1999 varsity coaches Bob Mackey, Craig Sincora, Lee Jonathan, Paul Swan, Mike Warren, Mike Fitzgerald, and Bill Mitz, and former football teammates David Davis, Blake Coley, Tiquion Clay, and Alex Holden. The 25-year-old plaintiff says the coaches knew that hazing was taking place but they did nothing to prevent the incidents.

Following the 1999 hazing incident, all four of his former teammates pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in Lake County. While Holden pleaded guilty to four counts of disorderly conduct, Clay pleaded guilty to one count. Clay and Holden were fined $100 and were ordered to write an essay about respecting students and serve community service. Although Cooley and Davis were charged with battery, they ended up pleading guilty to disorderly conduct.

Shinas says he waited until now to file his Chicago hazing lawsuit because his two brothers were at the high school and he wanted to wait until they graduated. Shinas says he wants to make sure that other athletes are not subject to the hazing that happened to him.

?Hazing?
Hazing is the term used to refer to an activity a person must go through to join a group. Hazing occurs more commonly in college environments, but hazing rituals have been known to occur among other groups. The Web Site StopHazing.org reports that certain high school teams have been known ?initiate? team members with ?brutal? activities. While often intended as ?tradition? that is in ?in good fun,? hazing has been known to cause serious personal injury and wrongful death.

Former athlete suing high school for hazing, ABC 7 Local, June 29, 2009

Ex-prep football player sues over 1999 hazing, Chicago Sun-Times, June 30, 2009

StopHazing.org

Related Web Resources:
Inside Hazing

Hazing underrecognized as cause of serious injury, says MGH physician, Bio-Medicine

Full post as published by Chicago Injury Attorney Blog on July 02, 2009 (boomark / email).