Docs’ ‘Confidence-Building’ Ends in Fall

BUFFALO, N.Y. (CN) - Bumbling chiropractors forced an employee to climb a 30-foot pole in the rain for a "team building" exercise, and she fell and suffered permanent, disabling injuries, the woman claims in Erie County Court.

Patricia Ducedre Nevajda says the chiropractic group and the corporate conference center where they held their retreat put her in a "frightening situation, without proper supervision and adequate safeguards."

Nevajda sued the Chiropractic Leadership Alliance and the Beaver Hollow Conference Center, of Java, N.Y.

Nevajda says she fell off the pole because the belay rope she was given had too much slack. She says the defendants did not place a trained instructor with each group, and negligently conducted the activity with "inexperienced participants during rainy, cool weather, facilitating certain slip hazards on the pamper-pole and its metal climbing stakes," which resulted in her fall.

The pamper-pole is purported to be a confidence-building exercise, in which a person climbs a tall shaft of wood or metal while harnessed to a belay rope. The person whose confidence is being built is supposed to leap off the top of the pole and grab a trapeze, or in the plaintiff's case, hit a ball.

Nevajda demands damages for negligence and for loss of enjoyment of life for her permanent and disabling injuries.

She is represented by Howard B. Cohen with Gross, Shuman, Brizdle & Gilfillan.

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