Koenig Vs North Mason School District

Team:
Musadiq Bidar
Samuel Mernick

Jason Koenig was a hotshot high school pitcher from North Mason High School in
Washington. On April 27th 2001, Koenig pitched the last game of his career. In a span of
16 days during his junior year, Koenig threw 425 pitches including 140 over nine innings
in his last outing. The next day he wasn’t able to put on his own clothes. Jason Koenig
would never pitch again. Of course as a 17-year-old Koenig would not want to come out
of any of the games pitched. He was the star on a good high school baseball team. His
coaches took little caution to prevent his injury. Three years to day later on April 27th
2004, Koenig filed suit against the North Mason School District over negligence charges.

The two litigants in this case are the defendant, North Mason School District and the
plaintiff, Jason Koenig. The suit was filed in April of 2004. However, the contents of
the case refer to incidents that take place three years prior while Jason Koenig was
pitching for the North Mason School district. These core incidents in regards to this cause
occurred between the dates of April 11th to April 27th, 2001 while Jason Koenig was a
high school junior pitching for the North Mason High school varsity baseball.

This case was filed in the Superior Court of Mason County, Washington. In this suit,
Jason Koenig is suing the school district for not adequately protecting his health and
his arm as a student athlete while under the supervision of their institution. Jason
Koenig claimed negligence in the districts management of his athletic capabilities by
not following the WIAA, Washing Interscholastic Activities Association, mandated
limit on how often a pitcher is allowed to pitch. Furthermore that the plaintiff was used
excessively not only in the amount of games played, but also in the amount of pitches
thrown per game. The plaintiff believes that district should have known that he was being
overused and put in danger. It is note worthy that Koenig sued the district and not Jay
Hultberg, Koenig’s coach at the time.

Koenig was asking the court to change the Washington Interscholastic Activities
Association rules so this type of injury would be avoided in the future. All of his pitching
was within the rules of Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. The rules state
that a pitcher must rest at least two days after pitching for three innings. Koenig was
hoping for a type of rule that would require pitch counts so coaches would be forced to
take players out of games, further preventing debilitating varsity high school baseball
injuries.

Four years after the case was filed, The Jury at the Superior Court of Mason County
in Washington ruled that the school distract wasn’t negligent. The Lead juror Mary
Newhall was cited in a Seattle Times article commenting that the Jury believed Jay
Hultberg—Koenig’s pitching coach in high school—did not have enough information on
the risk of high pitch counts at the time Koenig was injured. It is important to mention
that Hulberg was not mentioned in the lawsuit at all. Koenig was suing the school
distract, not his coaches. Koenig is now a professional photographer and his shoulder still
bothers him from time to time.