GLENDALE : Parents Win $1.25 Million in Boy’s Camping Death
A Glendale Superior Court jury has awarded $1.25 million to the family of a student at Campbell Hall school in Studio City who died of hypothermia while sleeping in a tent on a cold, rainy night during a camping trip to Big Bear Lake.
The parents of 12-year-old Kenneth M. Sprunt III, who died Oct. 24, 1989, contended that the boy’s death could easily have been avoided if the counselors overseeing the excursion had gone to a nearby lodge when it started raining.
Sprunt’s parents, Deborah Capra and Kenneth M. Sprunt Jr., sued Campbell Hall--a prestigious private school--and the Boojum Institute for Experiential Education, an Idyllwild-based nonprofit group that supervised the wilderness trip.
Campbell Hall settled the case for an undisclosed amount immediately before the trial began. The trial proceeded against the Boojum Institute, against which the judgment was returned after a four-week Superior Court trial.
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