A former USC business student who says she was severely injured performing a trapeze exercise as part of an elective class states in new court papers that she weighed 340 pounds at the time and was trying to perform a backflip.
Jill Johnson’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit names as defendants USC, marketing professor Joseph Priester and the Santa Monica Trapeze School LLC. Johnson, who was working toward her MBA at the time of her injuries, alleges premises liability, negligence and negligent hiring, retention, training and supervision.
“Like, I think … I sort of felt my leg crumple under me,” Johnson says of the second of two trapeze exercises she performed for a class called Fostering Creativity on March 2, 2023. “And then when I tried to stand up again, or get off the net, it was just completely, like, loose and unable to hold me. And I remember saying (epithet).”
Johnson says she then saw blood.
“So I was in the net and I was bleeding profusely onto the sidewalk below me,” Johnson testified, adding “I remember being in pain. But more so, I remember being in shock and now knowing what was going on.”
Johnson further testified that she was given morphine on the way to the hospital and that Priester was there, but that she doesn’t remember the specifics of any conversation they might have had.
Johnson said that once at the hospital, she saw that her injured left leg was “completely dislocated, so it’s kind of spaghetti-like, flopped, and they tried to, like, set it back in place and it just fell back over again and I started crying.”
Asked if the professor required students to take the trapeze lesson, Johnson replied, “He did not use the exact language of `required.’ But he did not provide any alternative.”
The excerpts from Johnson’s deposition were filed Thursday with Judge Steven Ellis in opposition a motion by USC and Priester to be dismissed as defendants in the case.
USC lawyers contend that Johnson “assumed the risks inherent in the trapeze activity by her mere participation in the activity and there is no evidence that defendants increased the risks inherent to exercise,” evidence they say is supported by her signing a participant agreement, release, and assumption of risk document provided her by the trapeze school.
According to the suit filed in October 2023, Johnson was a student at the USC Marshall School of Business, working to obtain an MBA. She was required to take a number of elective units and decided to enroll in the Fostering Creativity course taught by Priester.
The goal of the trapeze lesson was to help students find their edge and overcome their fears, the suit states.
Johnson told the professor she was concerned about the school’s weight limit and whether she would be able to participate, but he replied, “You are in great shape, and the weight will not be an issue,” the suit states.
Priester knew that Johnson exceeded the 205-pound weight limit, but still encouraged her to participate, according to the suit.
USC owed Johnson an obligation to not expose her to unnecessary risk and to supervise and approve the curriculum of its professors, but she suffered severe physical and emotional injuries, incurred medical costs and experienced past and future lost earnings, the suit alleges.
A hearing on the USC/Priester dismissal motion is scheduled for July 22. The trapeze school also has filed a dismissal motion that is set to be heard July 18, and its lawyers cite both the release document Johnson signed as well as the assumption of the risk theory.