The Board of Regents isn’t liable for injuries a Kansas University student suffered while wrestling in a padded sumo suit, an attorney for the board argued in a recent court filing.

Heather Fuqua, a sophomore from Olathe, is suing the board and KU for $75,000 each because of head injuries she suffered during a May 2001 recreation activity at Ellsworth Residence Hall.

In a response to her suit, Assistant Atty. Gen. Scott Hesse wrote that state law made the regents immune from the suit. According to the Kansas Tort Claims Act, a government entity can’t be sued for injuries at a recreational area unless it is guilty of “gross and wanton negligence” that led to the injury.

Hesse denied a number of the claims made in Fuqua’s lawsuit — for example, that the state was negligent in failing to provide a safe recreation activity and in failing to warn Fuqua of the “dangerous and hazardous” nature of the sumo game.

Also, KU’s associate general counsel, Rose Marino, has moved to dismiss KU from the suit, claiming that Fuqua’s attorneys didn’t follow state law when they served Chancellor Robert Hemenway with the suit.

When Fuqua had a hard time putting on her helmet before the wrestling match, the person supervising the event told her she didn’t need to wear it, said Fuqua’s attorney, Jim Stanley of Leawood. She faced off against a larger student, and he knocked her off the mat and onto a concrete floor, Stanley said.

He said Fuqua had fractured her skull, spent two weeks hospitalized at KU Med in Kansas City, Kan., and still suffered spells of dizziness and vomiting.

Fuqua also is suing the Florida entertainment company that provided the equipment.