Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) and two businesses are among the defendants named in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Kimberly Gilbert, the mother of the eight-year-old boy tragically killed in a September 3 car accident at King’s Court Mobile Home Park in Traverse City. Gilbert, identified in the lawsuit as the “personal representative for the estate” of her deceased son, Jayson William Hoogeveen, alleges that negligence on the part of the defendants led to the wrongful death of her son. She is seeking compensatory damages in excess of $100 million.

The lawsuit names TCAPS as a district, as well as Superintendent Dr. John VanWagoner, Director of Transportation Tyson Burch, and all seven current board members, including Scott Newman-Bale, Flournoy Humphreys, Andrew Raymond, Josey Ballenger, Erica Moon Mohr, Holly T. Bird, Beth Pack. Also named are Sun Communities, Inc., the owner and operator of the King’s Court community; Northern Michigan Water, LLC, a company that was doing business at King’s Court at the time of the incident; and Matthew Butler, identified as a “resident agent” of Northern Michigan Water and also the driver of the vehicle that struck Hoogeveen.

Gilbert and her legal representation at the Sam Bernstein Law Firm allege that TCAPS and Sun Communities were negligent in placing a school bus stop in an “unreasonably dangerous” location at King's Court. Per the lawsuit, the bus stop where Hoogeveen was hit and killed was “positioned within less than 200 feet from an intersection, with no identifying markers and within an active parking lot for the management office.” The lawsuit further claims that TCAPS and Sun Communities “were advised over the course of several years of the unreasonably dangerous nature” of the bus stop, including “40-50 actual complaints” from King’s Court residents.

“Parents and residents voiced safety concerns that included heavy traffic, speeding traffic, use of the parking lot during pick-up and drop-off hours and a general lack of safety for the children,” the complaint states.

According to the lawsuit, TCAPS and Sun made a plan in the spring of 2023 to relocate the bus stop in question to a spot “with much less and slower traffic.” Despite numerous announcements to that effect in King's Court newsletters published that spring and summer, the bus stop was not moved until two months after Hoogeveen was killed. Gilbert's lawyers allege that TCAPS and Sun put students at King’s Court “in harm’s way” by not moving the “unreasonably hazardous bus stop” more promptly.

The lawsuit also states that Butler was directed to “report to the King’s Court Leasing Office early in the am on September 3, 2024” by Sun Communities and Northern Michigan Water. During that meeting, Butler parked his vehicle, a 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, in the parking lot where the bus stop was located. The complaint alleges that Butler exited the leasing office “in a districted manner solely focused on the ‘paperwork’ provided to him by the Defendant SUN” and then “did negligently, carelessly, recklessly fail to observe Jayson Hoogeveen who was there to be seen and out in the open” at the bus stop. Butler then allegedly “improperly backed his motor vehicle in such a manner which prevented him from observing children sitting at a designated bus stop,” hitting and killing Hoogeveen.

The lawsuit ultimately accuses TCAPS and its named representatives, Sun Communities, Northern Michigan Water, and Butler of various forms of negligence that led to a deprivation of Hoogeveen's constitutional rights, and ultimately, his death. The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages “in an amount in excess of $100,000,000,” as well as an additional $100 million in punitive damages “due to the egregious conduct demonstrating a deliberate indifference as to the violation(s) of clearly established law…”

Other requests for relief in the lawsuit include the “creation and funding of a Jayson 'JJ' Hoogeveen Memorial Trust with its proceeds to be used for the future benefits of students who reside within the King’s Court Community”; and injunctive relief “requiring the Defendants to develop, devise, implement and maintain policies and customs which further protect the student residents of the King’s Court Community by constructing school bus stops throughout the community that are properly identified, with appropriate shelter and in safe locations thereby affording the residents of the King’s Court Community the proper protection they are entitled and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, Federal Statutes, Michigan Constitution and the Michigan Statutes.”

September 3 would have been Hoogeveen's first day of third grade at Traverse Heights Elementary School.