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PICAYUNE, Miss. (AP) — A Pearl River County judge has dismissed a lawsuit that alleged Picayune school officials were liable for a high school baseball player's injuries by failing to protect him from a hazing incident.
The lawsuit was filed by Jeffrey Dixon Sr. and Amy Dixon, parents of 15-year-old Jeffrey Dixon Jr. The teen was struck in the chest April 19, 2011, before the Picayune Memorial High School baseball team was to play a game against Lumberton High.
The family now lives in Alabama.
Jeffrey Dixon Sr. said in an email to the Associated Press on Friday that the ruling will be appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. He said the ruling gave school systems "complete immunity when a student is injured, hurt, or killed on school property, regardless of whether they have a ministerial right to protect them."
"So if your son or daughter is hazed on school property, we as parents cannot hold the school responsible.
"What is ironic about all of this is that state law mandates that we send our children to school to be educated, but the same state laws provide complete immunity to the coaches, teachers, and administrators we leave our children with and allow hazing," Dixon said.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2012 in Pearl River County but was transferred to federal court in Gulfport. A federal judge returned the lawsuit to Pearl River County Circuit Court last summer.
The Picayune Item reports (http://bit.ly/1iwPb2i ) Circuit Judge Anthony Mozingo on Thursday ruled for the school district. Mozingo's ruling came after a two-day trial.
Lawyers for the Picayune school system argued the coaches and school officials were not aware of the hazing ritual. They said the school district is not liable for an incident that occurred during an extracurricular activity.
The Dixons argued a similar incident had occurred in January 2011 and the baseball coach had suspended the player who punched another for one game — an indication that coaches and school officials knew what had happened.
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Information from: Picayune Item, http://www.picayuneitem.com
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