A $47,500 settlement has been announced by West Hartford’s town council earlier this week, bringing an end to a four-year lawsuit between the family of a former ice skating instructor and the city. The lawsuit was first filed by the family alleging that the skating instructor “died from injuries she sustained while working for the town.”
A $47,500 settlement has been announced by West Hartford’s town council, bringing an end to a four-year lawsuit between the family of a former ice skating instructor and the city. The lawsuit was first filed by the family alleging that the skating instructor “died from injuries she sustained while working for the town.”
The ice skating instructor, 81-year-old Estelle N. Tratiak, of West Suffield, passed away back in April of 2012. According to the lawsuit, the accident that contributed to her death occurred during a “skating lesson on March 26, 2012, “when a minor female skater struck the decedent from behind, causing her to fall and sustain serious personal injuries.” According to a claim filed with the town back in September of 2012, the minor skater “collided with Tratiak and caused her to hit her back and head on the ice. As a result of the injuries sustained from this fall, she eventually died after being taken to a local hospital for medical care and treatment.”
Before her passing, the lawsuit claimed Tratiak suffered “severe mental and emotional distress, mental anguish, fear, anxiety, pain, and death itself,” and her family members alleged that the former skating instructor’s injuries were a result of “the negligence and carelessness of West Hartford employees, who failed to properly supervise the minor skater, to have sufficient skating staff working on the ice at the time, and to develop, implement, enforce and establish necessary rules, regulations and safety guidelines.”
In addition to those allegations, the lawsuit also “accused the staff of failing to control skaters’ activity on the ice and failing to limit where skaters could do freestyle moves.” All of those factors, according to the family and lawsuit, contributed to the older woman’s death and was why the lawsuit was filed in the first place.
However, the town pushed back against the allegations. In 2014, attorneys representing West Hartford said the skating instructor’s injuries “were directly and proximately caused by her own negligence.” According to them, Tratiak was the one at fault because she failed to “exercise reasonable caution or watch where she was going” and “placed herself in a position of danger and failed to properly supervise other students.”
Before her death, Tratiak spent her life as a professional skater and even had the honor of performing with the Ice Capades. Eventually, she took a job with West Hartford’s Recreation Department as a “private figure skating instructor.”
Shortly after the settlement announcement, Pat Alair of the West Hartford Corporation Counsel issued an email that said:
“Ms. Tratiak was well-respected in West Hartford’s figure skating community and her death was a tragic accident. Our thoughts and sympathies continue to go out to her family at this time.”
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