Member of the American College of Forensic Examiners On July 12, 1990, plaintiff was an eleven (11) year old attending Camp Best Friends, a summer camp program sponsored and conducted by the Bureau of Recreation of the City of Atlanta. This was the first year that plaintiff and his sister attended the camp. Camp Best Friends was established in1981 in response to the missing and murdered children crisis that occurred in Atlanta. The purpose of Camp Best Friends was to provide a safe, supervised place for children during the summer months to keep the children safe and off the streets. The plaintiff's father, drove the plaintiff, his sister and another child to camp that morning and signed all three children in on the Sign In/Sign Out log. Plaintiff testified at deposition that he asked one of the instructors if he could go home and retrieve his bathing suit. He went home unsupervised, retrieved his swimsuit, and returned to camp. Later that morning plaintiff left the camp with his friend and his friend=s brother and went to his friend's home. The boys left the unsupervised and unnoticed.
There were no adults at his friend's home and while the boys were making cheese toast, one of the friends found a shotgun under the couch. The boy started playing with gun and it accidently went off, shooting the plaintiff in the head. He was rushed to the hospital where he remained in intensive care for several weeks with permanent and catastrophic head injuries. His survival was considered a miracle but he willl suffer mental and physical pain and never lead a normal life.
Dr. Leonard Lucenko, day camp and risk management liability expert, stated in his expert report that there was a serious neglect of professional standards and a deviation from reasonable and prudent standards of care and practice in the supervision of the children attending. It was a well-known fact that the children at the camp left the camp grounds on a regular basis without supervision. Dr. Lucenko stated that this practice was unconscionable and was contrary to all principles of supervision and child care and a most heinous and flagrant neglect of the children. In addition to the lack of supervision of the children by camp instructors and counselors, there was also a gross lack of supervision of the camp supervisors. There were no practices and procedures in place to make certain that the camp counselors were properly discharging their duties and following and enforcing camp rules and regulations. There were no protocols in place to make certain that the counselors and instructors were accountable for their actions. Dr. Lucenko stated that the counselors were not sufficiently trained and supervised as to the importance of proper supervision of children. These practices deviated from accepted standards of care in a day camp setting and reflected a gross negligence on the part of the camp director and camp staff with respect to the safety and supervision of children.
Dr. Lucenko stated that in his opinion, the physical lay-out of the camp was conducive to the children's leaving the camp premises unsupervised. There were few physical barriers to prevent the children from leaving the premises once they were dropped off by their parents. There were a few trees and bushes on some of the outer boundaries but these did not deter the campers from walking out on a regular basis.
Dr. Lucenko also stated that the sign in procedures at the beginning of camp were totally ineffective and inadequate. There was no camp staff on site at 7:30 to monitor the children. No one monitored the children=s progress from the sign in table to the ballfield where the children were to go to their assigned group since the ballfield was some distance from the table. These steps would have made it much more difficult for the children to leave the camp unsupervised. In addition, Dr. Lucenko stated that there was a lack of practices and procedures to account for the children every minute of the day and this was a gross deviation from accepted standards of care for children. Christopher W. Bennett et al. v. the City of Atlanta
