Alumna Crushed

An alumna of Johns Hopkins University issuing the school for $1 million because she was hit by a tree while walking on campus three years ago.

Kathleen Kaplan, who also works for the university as a campus recruiter, was crossing campus with her boyfriend. Thomas Themes, when the "large rotted tree" growing above a "busy pathway" fell on her, "completely without warning," according to her father, Louis Kaplan.

Kaplan's walk cost her a fractured skull, four crushed vertebrae, and other internal injuries, as well as $13,000 in hospital and doctor bills.

University officials are fighting the suit. In a deposition released last February. Johns Hopkins President Steven Muller attempted to clarify the school's policy.

"It's like somebody saying to me, I'll meet you in the lobby of the Hilton. I assume, since the Hilton doesn't close its lobby, that unless I make a tremendous nuisance of myself. I can go there, but I don't think the Hilton invites me to use its lobby if I'm not staying there. If a guest invites me, I'm that guest's guest," Muller testified. The Hopkins News-Letter