CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The U.S. National Whitewater Center responded to a wrongful death lawsuit filed after a teenager died following a 2016 visit.
Part of the response states, “The complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and should be dismissed."
Last month, a judge denied a motion by the whitewater center to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit regarding Lauren Seitz, who died from a brain-eating amoeba, but granted their request to move the case to the western district of North Carolina from Ohio.
The family of Seitz filed the lawsuit against the whitewater center and an engineering firm.
The Ohio teenager went rafting at the whitewater center with her church and was thrown from the raft, which is believed to be the moment she contracted a brain-eating amoeba.
Seitz died 11 days later.
Investigators later found high levels of the amoeba in the water.
The lawsuit claims the whitewater center failed at several stages of water treatment and didn't warn visitors about the dangers of unregulated water.
The family of the teenage girl filed the lawsuit in Ohio, where she lived.
The whitewater center argued that the case "has little or nothing to do with Ohio."
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It also claimed there is no evidence that the whitewater center engaged in the kind of “systematic activity in Ohio" for the court to have jurisdiction.
[DOCUMENT: Lawsuit against Whitewater Center]
The center is following new regulations because of the amoeba, including unannounced health inspections.
Cox Media Group
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