Town Settles Case
For $175,000
By M. D. Drysdale

The Randolph Selectboard agreed Tuesday night to a court settlement that would pay $175,000 to a young man injured on skateboard equipment in 1999.

Scott Perkins, then 13, sustained serious head and eye injuries when he fell while attempting to ride his bicycle on skateboard ramps that the town had placed at the Little League field.

He suffered a fractured eye socket, a skull fracture, and a contusion (bruise) on the frontal lobe of the brain, according to reports at the time.

Attorneys for the young man, who still lives in Randolph, at first demanded more than $1 million, according to Selectboard Chair Jim Hutchinson. A gruelling all-day negotiating session produced the $175,000 figure.

The award will be paid by the town's insurance program through the Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT), he said.

The selectboard spent the first half hour of Tuesday's meeting closeted in executive session with Atty. James Carroll of the Middlebury firm of English, Carroll, Ritter, and Boe, which represented VLCT. Atty. Carroll recommended that the town accept the settlement, and the board agreed, voting unanimously when it came out of executive session.

The accident ended a short, disastrous first experiment with a skateboard park in Randolph. The equipment had been built by teenagers themselves, with donated materials, supervised through the White River Craft Center.

The various pieces had been placed on blacktop near the youth baseball and softball fields. They were intended for skateboards only, but they quickly attracted bicycles as well. In the first week, two bicyclists were injured. After the first, minor injury, small signs were erected prohibiting bicycles, but there is some evidence that because the ramps were moved around, the signs were obscured at the time of Perkins' accident.

Perkins was driven to the hospital by his mother, Brenda Perkins, who arrived on the scene moments after the accident, and then he was rushed to Dartmouth-Hitchcock.

The skateboard equipment was taken down the next day, May 11, after being in place only a week.

An Eye-Opener

Hutchinson said yesterday that the whole process has been an eye-opener to him about the risks associated with the recreation program.

However, he said, the VLCT attorneys have advised the town that the current skateboard park on Prince Street does meet the "standard of due diligence" that the town must meet.

The attorney "pointed out several mistakes we made at the time (1999)," Hutchinson said. The mistakes included placing the skateboard equipment on the rec field, where dozens of kids regularly congregated with bicycles, etc.

The current park is just for skateboarders, and there have not been problems with bikes, he said.

The town also now has permanent signs about bicycles, he said.

"We're doing it correctly now," Hutchinson said—while pointing out that the skateboard park hasn't received much use this year.

Perkins could not be reached for comment yesterday.