CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s intermediate court isn’t buying an alternative school student’s argument that he should have been better supervised when he jumped off a bunk improperly and injured himself.
Jason Ryan Moorhead was appealing a lower court’s summary judgment that tossed his lawsuit against the West Virginia National Guard and the Mountaineer Challenge Academy.
The Circuit Court of Preston County granted summary judgment last July to throw out the student’s lawsuit, and Moorhead was seeking a reversal. The student didn’t get that from the West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals, which ruled that the right call was made in circuit court.
At the heart of the case was the question of how much supervision a person in an institutional setting should receive when getting down from a bunk bed.
The Mountaineer Challenge Academy is a voluntary, 22-week semi-military training and mentorship residential program for high school students considered to be at risk of not succeeding in a traditional school system. The challenge academy is operated by the West Virginia National Guard.
Moorhead was 16, a 10th grader, when he applied for the Mountaineer Challenge Academy, leaving Man High School in Logan County.
Orientation on July 12, 2015, included a range of instructions, including the approved method of dismounting their top bunks in the barracks.
“This method consisted of candidates sitting upright, turning so that they were face down on the bed, and then sliding down off the bunk on their stomachs,” according to the opinion issued by the intermediate court and written by Judge Charles Lorensen.
However, on the morning of July 27, 2015, as Reveille played, “Mr. Moorhead awoke and dismounted his bunk bed in an unapproved manner. Upon landing, he felt a pinch in his right knee but did not inform anyone that he felt that he had been injured.”
The next day, Moorhead informed a supervising officer that he had hurt his knee, and he was taken to an on-site nurse and given a pair of crutches.
Moorhead discharged from the challenge academy on July 22, was able to graduate with his high school diploma in 2017 and commended a lawsuit over the bunk incident in 2018.
Mountaineer Challenge Academy and the National Guard filed a motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, the circuit court granted that on July 28, 2022, and the Intermediate Court of Appeals agrees.
