The Jordan School District has reached an out-of-court settlement with the mother of a special-education student who drowned during a 1992 swimming class.
Bill Bartlett's biological mother accepted the $45,000 settlement on Oct. 24, a few days before her lawsuit was to go to trial in 3rd District Court.State attorneys tailored their settlement offer so that Laura Bartlett will receive only a small portion of the money, said Assistant Utah Attorney General James Soper.
The settlement, which will be covered by the district's insurance, will be consumed by a $34,000 Medicaid lien and the 14-year-old boy's funeral expenses.
"It was a compromise to a disputed claim," Soper said. "We're admitting no negligence."
Laura Bartlett's attorneys planned to argue that her son, a seventh-grader with a learning disability, was negligently supervised when he sank unnoticed to the bottom of the pool at West Jordan Middle School.
On May 22, 1992, Bill was among 50 students in a swimming class overseen by instructor Craig Hatch and lifeguard Martha Jentzsch. He had learned how to swim eight years earlier and was practicing his dives that day, court records state.
Some time during class, Jentzsch and a student noticed a motionless figure at the bottom of the pool's deep end, according to testimony. In a rescue effort that would later earn her a commendation, Jentzsch pulled the boy from the pool and restored his breathing.
However, Bill Bartlett never regained consciousness and died June 2, 1992. Medicaid paid about one-third of his $90,000 medical bill.
According to court records, state child-protection officials removed Bill Bartlett and his older brother from the Bartlett home in 1983 and placed them in foster care.
The suit was originally filed by his foster care family. Laura Bartlett joined the suit in January 1995, about 21/2 years after the boy's death. The Utah Supreme Court eventually ruled that the guardian family had no standing to sue because they had not adopted the boy.