Two years after local high school basketball star Joe Kay was disabled when fans tackled him at a championship game, he has quietly settled lawsuits against the Tucson Unified School District and the two students who injured him.
Kay will receive a total of $3.5 million — $2.9 million from TUSD and $600,000 from the homeowners' insurance policies of the two students' parents. But Kay won't receive all that money at once. It will be placed in a tax-free annuity and paid out over the course of his life, starting in five years. Also, a chunk of that money will go toward attorney fees.
For Kay and his family, the settlements are a "bittersweet" episode in a life-changing event — but not one that has dampened their attitudes, they say.
It was at a game in February 2004 when Kay scored a two-handed slam dunk in the final minutes of the game. Afterward, fans surrounded him in celebration but trampled him and tore his carotid artery. He suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side of his body, forcing him to forgo his athletic career but not standing in his way of being valedictorian of his Tucson High Magnet School class.
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The Kay family filed suit against the school district in early 2005, and later against the two students the district named as being responsible. The Star is not naming the students because they have not been charged criminally.
The settlements were reached sometime in February, but it wasn't until late March that the case — which was set to begin April 4 — was dismissed in Pima County Superior Court.
Most of TUSD's portion will be covered by insurance, said Lauren Eib, director of TUSD risk management. But the district will need to pay a $250,000 deductible, Eib said.
The settlement was a "financial decision" and not an acknowledgment that district staffers did anything wrong the night of the incident, said TUSD attorney Jerald Wilson.
"Our argument was, we had people supervising, and fans rushed onto the court. This was an unusual event — an unprecedented, unfortunate event — that couldn't have been prevented by the supervision at the game," Wilson said.
But Kay and his family see things differently. Their suit cites examples of the district hyping the event as "jam the gym" night and refers to a previous game against Salpointe Catholic High School in which fans rushed the court.
"I don't feel relieved or satisfied," about the settlement, Kay said in a phone interview from his dorm room at Stanford University. "It is what it is. Now, I can think about school and my social life and not have the lawsuit over my head the whole time."
Kay and his mother, Suzanne Rabe, stressed that the settlement doesn't make them millionaires. Rather, it sets up a cash flow that will offset the considerable loss of income Kay will experience because of his injuries.
"We would have handed back the money in a heartbeat to have Joe back whole again," said Rabe, a law professor at the University of Arizona. "The settlement begins to compensate Joe for the financial losses he'll have as a result of the injury. No amount of money, though, can compensate him for his other losses."
Rabe and attorneys for both sides say the settlement process was fair and constructive. And Rabe said the district continues to help offset some of the family's medical cost through its own insurance.
"We never had ill will," she said. "We never were angry toward the school district or the boys who tackled Joe. But we felt the failure to provide security and the boys' immature behavior had unfortunately cost Joe a lot."
No pity sought
Kay, who'd had a volleyball scholarship to Stanford, is majoring in biology and history there. He's tried to keep a low profile the past year.
"I don't want any pity," he said. "The initial stoke was horrible, but I moved on. I'm not a vegetable like people think. People come up to me on the street and think I can't walk or talk."
Kay is active on his campus. He's one of the leaders behind a push at Stanford for a disabled-students association — one that can help make such things as specialized gym equipment more available.
He also is covering men's volleyball for The Stanford Daily, the student-run newspaper, and is getting a taste, he said, of what it's like to be on the other side of things after being the subject of media coverage.
And he remains close to his family. Kay is the youngest of four children, and his father, Fred Kay, is a former federal public defender. He now is a public defender in the county's juvenile division.
The Kays were hoping things would just quietly fade away. The past two years have involved numerous hospital visits, legal proceedings and frank discussions.
"He's rising to the occasion," Rabe said of her son. "The rest of the world started looking at him as broken. People had pity on him."
And that seems to be a pet peeve of Kay's. Even his close-knit family struggled to make sense of things. Rabe had turned to reading stacks of books for help and advice.
But it was after that issue of "pity" clicked with her that her son said: "Thank you, Mom. You finally get it."
