STANSBURY PARK, Utah — It has been a little more than a year since an 8-year-old boy died after falling off a slide in a playground of a Stansbury Park elementary school.
On Monday, Timothy and Kathryn Cunningham, the parents of Dallin Cunningham, filed a lawsuit in the Third Judicial District Court against the Tooele County School District.
"I've represented a lot of grieving parents and I would say that they are still very, very hurt," said Peter Mifflin, the family's attorney.
Mifflin works as an attorney for Robert J. DeBry & Associates.
"It's still very, very difficult for them to talk about the details," said Mifflin.
He said Tuesday that the Cunninghams are still dealing with those emotions after their son's death last year.
The lawsuit filed on Monday lists the following causes of action:
-First Cause of Action - Negligence
-Second Cause of Action - Strict Liability in Tort
-Third Cause of Action - Wrongful Death (Utah Code 78B-3-106)
"The main thing that's the problem is that the playground surface around the playground had not been appropriately maintained — it was rock solid," said Mifflin.
The lawsuit goes into more detail about the playground surface, stating the mulch was inadequate.
The standard is 12 inches of fill material which is anticipated to compress to a minimum of nine inches of fill. The lawsuit alleges the mulch on this playground was approximately one inch in depth, before being frozen solid underneath.
"You have a situation where Dallin, unfortunately, went down the slide and came off about 7 feet off the ground and landed on his head in a play surface that had deteriorated," said Mifflin.
The top of the corkscrew slide, Mifflin says, was about 11 feet off the ground.
"The walls need to be high enough, so that as they're going around that spiral,, they don't keep going, they stay in the slide," said Mifflin.
The slide, Mifflin says, has since been removed.
"I think that the district has when they took the slide out, I think that was a good move," said Mifflin.
On Tuesday, Mifflin spoke about what comes next in the process.
"The state of Utah's Attorney General's office will file an answer on behalf of the school district. One of the things that they'll have to do is they're going to have to tell us whether they agree or disagree with the allegations that we've made," said Mifflin.
Mifflin went on to say once the answer is filed, the soonest he would see that they would have to be ready to schedule a trial would probably be 18 months from now.
FOX 13 News has reached out to the Tooele County School District. They said due to the open and active litigation, they are unable to provide a comment at this time.
The full complaint document can be viewed HERE.
