Trial Magazine

When she was a teenager, Doe played for the Black Hills Football Club, a private soccer club. Head coach David Davis told Doe that she could be the captain for an upcoming tournament in Medford, Ore. At the tournament, Davis invited Doe to a “strategy session” in his room at their hotel, where he allegedly raped her and then pulled her across the room by the hair and dumped her in the hotel hallway. At a game the next day, Davis allegedly told Doe that she should “snap out of it” or he would rape her again.

Doe’s mother, sensing something was wrong, confronted Davis at a tournament weeks later, prompting him to throw cones at her before walking away from the tournament and disappearing from the club.

Doe suffered emotional distress resulting in severe depression, suicidality, and drug and alcohol abuse that required treatment.

Doe sued Black Hills Football Club, alleging negligence, gross negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, failure to report, and violation of the Washington Law Against Discrimination. The plaintiff asserted that the defendant failed to check Davis’s references when hiring him and failed to protect players from the danger of sexual predation.

The parties settled for $7.5 million.

Citation: Doe v. Black Hills Football Club, No. 18-2-02416-34 (Wash. Super. Ct. Thurston Cty. Feb. 2, 2022).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members Darrell Cochran, Kevin Hastings, and Andrew Ulmer, all of Seattle.