Faucon v. Parkland Area Sch. Dist., 2025 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 179 (October 21, 2025) McCullough, J.
OPINION BY JUDGE McCULLOUGH
Jamie A. Faucon, as parent and natural guardian of Callie Faucon, a minor (Student), and in her own right (together, Appellant), appeals from the September 11, 2024, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County (trial court), which sustained Parkland School District’s (School District) preliminary objections in the nature of demurrers and dismissed Appellant’s third amended complaint with prejudice. Upon review, we affirm.
Appellant filed the operative third amended complaint against the School District on June 13, 2024. The third amended complaint includes a single cause of action for negligence. Appellant alleges that on March 14, 2023, Student was injured in gym class while in the weight room of Parkland Area High School. Specifically, Appellant avers that Student saw a weight leaning against a wall, approached it, and then it allegedly “suddenly and without warning” fell on her foot.
Here, Appellant alleges that “unfettered” access to the weight room amounts to a design flaw because it is foreseeable that a weight would be stored improperly. Despite Appellant’s attempt to couch the cause of Student’s injury as a problem with the care, custody, or control of the weight room, Student was not injured as a result of the negligently constructed or designed weight room. Rather, she was injured by an item of personalty, a weight, that fell on her foot in the weight room.
Because the real property exception applies only to real property, Student’s injury from the weight leaning against the wall in the high school’s weight room does not fall within the exception. The School District, therefore, is immune under the Tort Claims Act. The order of the trial court is affirmed.
· Action for negligence concerning gym class weight room.
· Appellant claims that student saw a weight leaning against a wall and approached it. It then suddenly without warning fell on her.
· The Court dismissed the case as not fitting within a real property exception through Sovereign Immunity Act.
