Tennis player Eugenie Bouchard filed a lawsuit yesterday against the USTA that "alleges the sport’s national governing body was negligent, leaving her to slip and fall in a locker room during the U.S. Open," according to Michael Balsamo of the AP. Bouchard in the suit says that she "has suffered severe pain and economic loss after the Sept. 4 incident." The suit was "filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn" and seeks "unspecified monetary damages." Shortly after a match in the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Bouchard "slipped and fell on the tile floor of a physiotherapy room that is inside the locker room, slamming her head against the ground." She later "withdrew from the U.S. Open and tournaments in China and Japan." Bouchard claims that the USTA "didn't keep the locker room in a 'safe and suitable condition' because the organization failed to maintain, clean and repair the floor, which led to her fall" (AP, 10/14). Bouchard in the suit says the fall was induced by "a slippery, foreign and dangerous substance on the floor." Her attorney, Benedict Morelli, said that the substance "was a cleaning agent that was intended to be left on the floor overnight when the room would no longer be used." In N.Y., Ben Rothenberg notes Bouchard is "asking for a jury trial." Morelli said, "We could be talking about millions and millions." But he added with her still experiencing symptoms, "we don't know the extent yet" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/15).
