A New York federal court has ruled in favour of Eugenie Bouchard following her dispute with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) over a fall she sustained during the 2015 US Open.
Bouchard, 23, has accused the USTA of negligence after slipping over in the locker room late at night at Flushing Meadows. The Canadian suffered concussion as a result of the fall and missed a series of tournaments following on from that. During her testimony on Wednesday, the Canadian said she felt burning on her back due to the floor being covered in cleaning chemicals.
“I screamed, ‘Oh my God, it burns!’” she recalled. “I was wearing a sports bra … my back was on the floor.”
“It was all over me,” she said of the chemicals.
The world No.116 is suing the USTA on the basis that they shouldn’t have applied a slippery substance to the surface of a room with poor lighting. In their defence, the tennis association argues that Bouchard shouldn’t have been in the area late at night without a trainer and she should have known that the room would be in the process of cleaning given the time of night (11pm). A claim disputed by Bouchard’s lawyer, who said that there was nothing in the players’ handbook stating that she should have been accompanied by a trainer.
A jury of three men and four women have ruled mostly in favour of Bouchard and declared the USTA negligent. In a verdict delivered on Thursday afternoon, they concluded that the USTA was 75% at fault of the fall and Bouchard herself was 25% responsible.
Bouchard was found to have some contributory negligence in the injury, set at 25% by the jury.
That essentially means that the USTA will get a 25% discount on whatever damages it has to pay her. #BouchardVsUSTA
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) 22 February 2018
The trial will continue on Friday with the damages part of the case yet to be settled. Bouchard is seeking unspecified damages with the total financial compensation potentially going into the millions. It is possible that the legal process could end early if the two parties comes to an agreement.
