Utah family blames paintball in lawsuit over ATV accident that claimed son

By Jim Greene

Published on September 26, 2005

Kevin and Cindy Roper filed suit this week against Kent and Sheri Leavitt and their sons Jason and Clifton Leavitt, claiming Clifton fired a paintball that struck Trace Roper in the left eye during an unsupervised youth football party. The Ropers claim their son's impaired vision rendered him unable to negotiate a turn with his ATV, causing him to plunge into an irrigation canal and drown.

According to the suit, Kent and Sheri Leavitt were not present at the 2001 party, attended by 14- and 15-year-olds. They left their son Jason, then 16, in charge, but he left the property.

The suit alleges that Clifton Leavitt found a paintball gun in the Leavitt house and fired it at Trace Roper, hitting him in the back and in the left eye, and that no adults returned to the property until 15 to 20 minutes after the incident.

Plaintiffs' attorney Cody Patterson said an ophthalmologist's report indicated the victim was left with no depth perception in the damaged eye and compared it to driving with a hand over one eye. He said Roper couldn't see the bend in a road adjacent to the canal and wound up pinned beneath the ATV underwater.

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