BRAZORIA COUNTY, Texas — The family of a 16-year-old who was brutally beaten at a party last month has filed a lawsuit against several of his classmates and their parents for millions.
Cole Hagan, a Brazoswood High School football player, continues to recover from his injuries in the Dec. 3 attack, and three teens are charged in connection with the incident.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 23 in Brazoria County, seeks $50 million in damages from the alleged attackers and more than a dozen others, claiming they knew about plans to "attack Cole Hagan."
KHOU legal analyst Carmen Roe said that $50 million amount is standard in a case this serious.
“You’re not just looking at his cost of hospital bills, the therapy that goes into it that I understand he’s undergoing now, but it has to do with his future possibility and future wages, his future potential in sports,” Roe said. “I also think, like a lot of lawsuits, it’s for shock and awe. It’s the beginning of negotiations that will ultimately resolve in a settlement.”
Reid Mitchell, 17, Logan Huber, 17, and Ayden Holland, 18, are charged with aggravated assault in connection with Hagan's beating and are named as defendants in the suit, along with four other teens and their parents.
“They’re looking for the money from these parents when a lot of times, these children, 17 and 18 years old, simply are not going to be able to pay the medical bills and the damages that this family has suffered through," said Roe.
Hagan was recovering at TIRR Memorial Hermann. According to a social media post from his brother, he's now back at home but faces a long road to recovery.
"Further, Cole Hagan has missed and continues to miss his junior year in high school and as a high school athlete, has also missed games and will likely not be able to play sports in either high school or college in the future," the lawsuit states. "Football has been Cole Hagan's passion for many years."
The suit also accuses several people of negligence, claiming they knew or should have known about the plan to attack Hagan.
The father of one of the other teens is also accused of giving alcohol to minors. The lawsuit claims the teens’ intoxication caused injury to Cole.
The Hagan family is seeking a trial by jury.
Scott Brown, an attorney for Logan Huber, told Insider that his client was innocent.
"We believe that, unfortunately, he was just an innocent pawn in all of this with no knowledge of exactly what was going to happen, the way that it happened," Brown told Insider.