His parents allege that the death was not a random accident but a preventable tragedy given that there had been warnings about the decaying condition of the oak tree and another large branch had fallen from it several days prior.<\/p>\n
Now they are taking legal action against the camp and the MRCA and filed a government claim on Monday, which is a required precursor to filing a lawsuit against a public entity in California.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lamar McGlothurn was under a tree at King Gillette Ranch when a heavy branch fell and landed on him. The tree had lost another branch a few days before.<\/p>\n
(Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP)<\/p>\n
The claim alleges that both the MRCA and the owners of Camp Wildcraft knew branches were dangerously dropping from the tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, Camp Wildcraft and MRCA inexplicably directed groups of young children to play, paint and rest directly under the tree,\u201d states the claim. \u201cThat is exactly what Lamar was doing when he was tragically killed by the falling branch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MRCA said in a statement that it would review the claim and complaint and respond appropriately but declined to comment further on the incident as it is the subject of active litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom day one, the MRCA has been committed to a full, thorough, and transparent inquiry, with a proposed action plan to ensure that a tragedy like this never occurs again,\u201d stated the authority. \u201cThat investigation remains open and ongoing, and the MRCA continues to cooperate fully with all parties involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shari Davis, co-owner of Camp Wildcraft, declined to comment on the litigation. <\/p>\n
In a statement posted on their website in July, the camp extended \u201cheartfelt condolences\u201d to everyone affected by the accident and \u201cespecially to the family of our beloved camper who lost his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCamp Wildcraft is a small, family-run business rooted in a deep love for nature, creativity, children and community,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cWhat happened is beyond anything we could have ever imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n
On July 2, another branch fell from the exact same tree and the MRCA hired a tree company to remove it, according to the claim.<\/p>\n
The following day, the MRCA division chief wrote in an email, \u201cWow. That was a massive branch. Thank god no one was seriously hurt or killed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The chief then thanked staff for taking care of the July 2 branch, writing, \u201cI would not have been able to sleep at night knowing that branch was just waiting to fall,\u201d according to the claim. <\/p>\n
\u201cArboricultural industry standards, best practices and common sense call for the area surrounding a dangerous tree to be blocked off if the tree poses a threat of harming people,\u201d states the claim. However, no one stopped children from gathering under it, the claim alleges. <\/p>\n
Tree experts later inspected the tree on behalf of Lamar\u2019s family and found significant deterioration including previous limb losses and signs of internal decay, the claim states.<\/p>\n
The claim alleges that, based on the visible defects, a prior branch having fallen and the fact that the tree was in a place where people would foreseeably gather, the accident was a \u201cpreventable tree failure, not a spontaneous or unforeseeable act of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MRCA has 45 days to respond to the claim, after which the family can move forward with a wrongful death lawsuit and seek damages.<\/p>\n
The parents\u2019 attorney, Robert Glassman, said in a statement that camps have a responsibility to assess the safety of places where kids play, and public entities should not turn a blind eye to obviously dangerous conditions.<\/p>\n
Gomez Landscape & Tree Care is also a defendant in the claim and could not immediately be reached for comment. The company was hired to remove the branch that fell on July 2 and expressed concerns about the tree\u2019s decay to the MRCA, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cA deadly decaying branch hung over children\u2019s heads, and no one acted,\u201d said Glassman. \u201cLamar had to pay the ultimate price because of their indifference and inaction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lamar McGlothurn\u2019s parents arrived to pick up the 8-year-old from summer camp in Calabasas but instead watched as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35679,7,9,8,7375,8863,217,1431,5679,35680,35678,2268,7755,7087,35681,3025,13795,5700],"class_list":["post-58357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-branch","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-camp","tag-claim","tag-day","tag-family","tag-july","tag-lamar-mcglothurn","tag-mrca","tag-nature","tag-one","tag-parent","tag-public-entity","tag-statement","tag-tree","tag-young-child"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}