A lifeguard lawsuit is a civil or criminal case brought after a drowning or near-drowning, alleging that a lifeguard, the facility that employed them, or the government entity running the pool or beach failed in a legal duty to keep swimmers safe. These cases can produce multimillion-dollar verdicts, felony charges against individual guards, and long fights over whether a public pool can be sued at all. Whether a claim succeeds usually turns on three things: how clearly the guard’s inattention can be shown, whether the facility was properly staffed and equipped, and whether the defendant enjoys some form of governmental immunity.
How Negligence Is Proven
Lifeguards are held to a professional standard, not the standard of an ordinary bystander. Their core duty has two parts: watch swimmers for signs of distress, and attempt a reasonable rescue when distress appears.1George Mason University. Parks and Recreation Law Reporter A guard who fails to see what a competent guard reasonably should have seen can be found negligent. Facility operators owe patrons ordinary and reasonable care but are not insurers of safety.
Breach is generally proven by showing the guard was doing something else. Socializing, paperwork, phone use, maintenance tasks, leaving a station without following protocol — courts have treated all of these as evidence of inattention.1George Mason University. Parks and Recreation Law Reporter Inadequate training that makes an injury worse can independently establish fault.
Plaintiffs usually pursue one or more of three theories:
- Negligent supervision, meaning the facility failed to provide enough guards or employed undertrained ones.
- Premises liability, meaning the property itself was unsafe — missing depth markers, broken fencing, defective drain covers.
- Negligence per se, meaning the defendant violated a specific safety statute, such as a law requiring a minimum number of guards on duty.
What Recent Cases Have Looked Like
Waterbury Boys and Girls Club: $12.3 Million Verdict
On June 9, 2008, five-year-old Brianna Murray drowned during a free-swim session at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Waterbury, Connecticut. Thirty-two children were in the pool, supervised by a single lifeguard.2CT Post. Jury: Club Must Pay $12.3M for Girl’s Pool Death Evidence at trial showed the guard was not in the elevated chair, was doing paperwork, was wearing capri pants and sandals rather than rescue attire, and was drinking iced coffee.3Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder. Mistakes by Lifeguard, Club Led to $12 Million Drowning Verdict When Brianna’s brother tried to alert her, the guard reportedly directed another child to pull Brianna from the water rather than entering the pool. Club employees allegedly did not attempt chest compressions for 11 minutes.
In September 2014, a jury returned a $12.3 million verdict after deliberating less than four hours: $7.2 million to the estate, $5 million to Brianna’s brother for bystander emotional distress, and $90,000 for medical and funeral costs. Plaintiffs’ counsel argued the one-guard-to-32-children ratio was a clear violation of American Red Cross staffing guidelines.4New Haven Register. Jury Awards $12.3M to Family of Girl in Waterbury Drowning The defense argued that an undiagnosed cardiac condition, not supervision, caused the death, and announced plans to appeal.
Chelsea Piers: A Criminal Case Against a Lifeguard
On August 3, 2017, five-year-old Adam Khattak went underwater at the Chelsea Piers Splash Zone in Stamford, Connecticut. Surveillance video showed on-duty lifeguard Zachary Stein walking the pool perimeter for four minutes and 39 seconds while the child was submerged.5Stamford Advocate. Lifeguard to Get Diversionary Program in Stamford Stein was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, a felony, and risk of injury to a child.6NBC New York. Lifeguard Charged in Near-Drowning at Connecticut Pool In June 2018, a Stamford Superior Court judge placed him in a two-year diversionary program that barred him from lifeguard work; on successful completion the charges would be dismissed and expunged.7Aquatics International. Lifeguard Will Have Felony Charge Removed
The child’s parents also filed a civil suit against Stein and the Chelsea Piers entities alleging negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and financial losses, describing hypoxic brain injury and permanent trauma.8New Canaanite. Parents Sue in New Canaan Boy’s Nonfatal Drowning Case
Niles YMCA: Two Guards, One Distracted Conversation
In May 2017, 61-year-old Yosef Bornstein suffered heart pain while swimming laps at the Leaning Tower YMCA in Niles, Illinois, and went under. A lawsuit filed the following month in Cook County alleged that two lifeguards were on duty but were talking to each other, and that Bornstein was submerged “in full view” for more than five minutes before another swimmer found him at the bottom.9ABC News. Lifeguards Took Minutes to Pull Submerged Swimmer From Pool, Lawsuit Alleges The complaint faulted both the guards and the facility for lifeguard stations without unobstructed views.10CBS News Chicago. Lawsuit: Niles YMCA Lifeguards Failed to Notice Swimmer Underwater Bornstein suffered serious brain injuries. The YMCA placed both guards on administrative leave.11Chicago Tribune. Evanston Man Sues Niles YMCA Saying Lifeguards Did Not Notice Him Unconscious in Pool
Miami Beach: A Government Case That Needed the Legislature
On August 16, 2022, Peniel “P.J.” Janvier, a 28-year-old recreation leader for the Miami Beach Parks and Recreation Department, was pushed into the deep end of the Scott Rakow Youth Center pool by a camper. He struggled for roughly 12 minutes before drowning; the family’s attorneys said the on-duty lifeguard was focused on a phone.12Florida Politics. Gov. DeSantis Approves $1.7M Payment to Family of Rec Leader Drowned in Miami Beach Pool Janvier died 10 days later. The facility had staffed only two of four lifeguard chairs and had not assigned zones of responsibility.
Miami Beach commissioners approved a $2 million settlement in May 2024, but Florida caps recovery against a government entity at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. The city paid $300,000; the rest required a legislative claims bill. SB 14, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, authorized payment of the remaining $1.7 million.13Florida Senate. SB 14 — Claims Bill, Janvier v. City of Miami Beach Florida uses this claims-bill mechanism whenever a judgment or settlement against a government defendant exceeds the statutory cap.
When Immunity Blocks a Suit
Suing a government-run pool or beach is a different problem than suing a YMCA or a private club. Sovereign and governmental immunity doctrines can bar recovery entirely, and they vary sharply by state.
Michigan: A High Proximate-Cause Bar
In Beals v. State of Michigan (2015), the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that a state-employed lifeguard was immune from a wrongful death claim even though video showed him distracted for roughly eight minutes while 19-year-old William Beals, a swimmer with disabilities, was submerged. The court reasoned that the guard’s inattention was a breach of duty but not “the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause” of the drowning; the initial submersion had an unknown cause, and the guard “merely failed to observe it happening and to attempt a rescue in response.”14Michigan Lawyers Weekly. State Lifeguard’s Failure to Act Not the Proximate Cause of Drowning
The Michigan Court of Appeals later applied Beals in Estate of Tschirhart v. City of Troy (2019) to dismiss a claim involving a disabled man who suffered a seizure and drowned. The court held that because of “the inherent uncertainty of successful rescue,” a guard’s delay cannot be established as the cause in fact of a drowning.15Michigan Lawyers Weekly. Governmental Immunity Applies in Drowning Case Regardless of Gross Negligence
Ohio: Operational Choices Are Not “Physical Defects”
In Hoskins v. City of Cleveland, decided April 2026, the Supreme Court of Ohio addressed a 2019 drowning at the Thurgood Marshall Recreation Center. The estate argued that the on-duty guard’s decision to sit in a low folding chair instead of the elevated lifeguard chair created a blind spot and amounted to a “physical defect” under R.C. 2744.02(B)(4), an exception to Ohio’s governmental immunity statute.16Supreme Court of Ohio. Hoskins v. Cleveland, 2026-Ohio-1225 The court, in a divided opinion by Justice Joseph T. Deters, rejected that reading. A physical defect is a “tangible imperfection that impairs the function of an object”; the elevated chair worked fine, and the guard’s choice of seating was an operational decision, not a flaw in the property.17Supreme Court of Ohio. Hoskins v. Cleveland, Slip Opinion 2026-Ohio-1225 Justice Jennifer Brunner dissented. The ruling reinforces that operational lapses by public employees do not, on their own, break Ohio’s immunity shield.
Good Samaritan Laws Don’t Cover On-Duty Guards
Families are sometimes told, or assume, that Good Samaritan laws protect lifeguards from being sued for mistakes. They generally do not. Those statutes shield bystanders who voluntarily provide emergency care without a preexisting duty or expectation of payment. An on-duty lifeguard has a contractual and professional obligation to rescue, so most jurisdictions exclude them from Good Samaritan protection and judge them by the professional standard of care instead.18NCBI. Good Samaritan Laws
Staffing and State Rules
Understaffing is one of the most litigated issues in pool cases. The United States Lifesaving Association’s guidelines say guards assigned to watch swimmers “shall not be subject to duties that would distract or intrude their attention from proper observation” or prevent “immediate assistance to persons in distress.”19CDC. Lifeguard Effectiveness: A Report of the Working Group The Waterbury verdict turned on that principle: 32 children, one guard, doing paperwork. So did the Janvier and Bornstein complaints, where the guards were physically present but not watching.
There is no federal standard for lifeguard training, certification, or staffing. Regulation is left to the states, and it varies. Texas mandates specific lifeguard, CPR, and community first-aid training and prohibits pool use at guarded facilities when no guard is on duty. California limits on-duty lifeguards to tasks related to swimmer safety, an explicit attempt to keep them from being pulled into the kind of multitasking that has produced drownings elsewhere.1George Mason University. Parks and Recreation Law Reporter What a facility owes, and what a plaintiff can prove it violated, depends heavily on where the pool sits.