The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is at risk of losing insurance coverage in the Paralympic abuse case involving alleged rapist Robert Griswold.
The USOPC’s commercial general liability insurer, a German company called HDI Global Specialty SE, filed a lawsuit in Colorado last month claiming it should not be held liable for coverage in a separate civil case accusing the USOPC of negligence. HDI Global Specialty SE argues that its policy provision for abuse does not apply because Griswold was not an employee of the organization during the time in 2021-22 when he allegedly raped a Para swimming teammate with an intellectual disability.
Olympic and Paralympic athletes aren’t considered employees of the USOPC even though they generate revenue and receive benefits such as performance rewards, training support, and health insurance. In order to counter the insurance company’s claims, the USOPC seems like it’d have to argue that Olympic and Paralympic athletes are employees, which could send the organization down an unwanted path that the NCAA is currently traveling.
USOPC’s insurer says it has already paid $75,000 in legal fees over the past 20 months defending the ongoing lawsuit that accuses the organization of taking “extensive efforts to shield and protect Griswold.” The 15-page civil action is available to read in full here.
Griswold’s sexual assaults allegedly started at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021 and continued through August of 2022, resulting in injuries so severe that the teenaged victim required rectal surgery. However, he has not been arrested as the Colorado Springs Police Department’s investigation turned inactive due to the “lack of witnesses” and “corroborating evidence.” The civil case is ongoing with discovery recently being completed in late May.
“This case is a horrific tragedy, where a young man who defied all odds to become a world-class Paralympic swimmer had his life utterly shattered by rape and abuse when he was paired with a team member who was a violent sexual predator,” the 2022 complaint claimed.
Safesport is useless.