A family vacation in Maine was supposed to be a simple summer memory for the Morgan family.
Instead, it became the beginning of a tragedy that the family says they will never recover from.
More than two years after 6-year-old Lucy Morgan suffered a catastrophic injury during a family vacation, her parents have filed a wrongful-death and product-liability lawsuit against the company that manufactured the badminton equipment involved in the accident.
The lawsuit, filed in Maine in August 2026, accuses Franklin Sports of selling a badminton racket that was defective and unreasonably dangerous. The family alleges that the racket’s metal shaft was not adequately secured to its wooden handle and that the company failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential danger.
Franklin Sports has not admitted wrongdoing. The company told Fox News that it extends its deepest sympathies to Lucy’s family and everyone affected by the tragedy, but said it could not comment on the specific allegations because litigation is now pending.
At the center of the lawsuit is a little girl whose life ended after what initially appeared to be an ordinary game of badminton.
A family vacation suddenly turned into an emergency
Lucy Morgan was vacationing with her parents and siblings at a rental cottage in Limerick, Maine, on June 1, 2024.
According to the lawsuit, it was the family’s final full day of vacation. The children were outside playing badminton while Lucy and one of her siblings were nearby.
Maine State Police said Lucy’s 10-year-old brother was playing with the racket when part of it unexpectedly separated.
The aluminum shaft became detached from the wooden handle. The metal portion flew through the air and struck Lucy in the head, penetrating her skull.
She was only 6 years old.
The injury was catastrophic.
Lucy was initially transported to Southern Maine Health Care in Sanford before being airlifted to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where doctors attempted to save her life.
She died four days later, on June 5, 2024, according to police and the family’s account.
The accident was not the result of an intentional act. It was a devastating failure that the family says should never have happened during ordinary use of a children’s recreational product.
That belief is now at the heart of the lawsuit.
What the family says went wrong
The complaint filed on behalf of Lucy’s family alleges that the badminton racket was defective in several ways.
According to the lawsuit, the handle and metal shaft were not sufficiently secured. The family alleges that the adhesive connecting the two components was defective or inadequate and that the racket lacked a secondary safety mechanism that could have prevented the metal shaft from becoming a dangerous projectile if the primary connection failed.
The lawsuit also claims that Franklin Sports failed to adequately warn consumers about the risk.
In other words, the family’s legal argument is not simply that the racket broke.
It is that the way the racket was designed and manufactured allegedly allowed a relatively ordinary piece of sporting equipment to become capable of causing a fatal injury when the connection failed.
Those allegations have not been proven in court.
Franklin Sports has said it takes product safety seriously and is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident, while declining to address the specific claims because the case is pending.
The family says there may have been an earlier warning
One of the most significant allegations in the new lawsuit concerns another incident involving a Franklin badminton racket.
Attorney Charles P. Hehmeyer, who represents Lucy’s family, told WCVB that a child in New York had previously suffered a serious eye injury after a racket came apart.
Hehmeyer alleges that Franklin Sports knew about that earlier incident but did not make what the family considers an appropriate safety change.
The attorney specifically argued that a secondary restraint, such as a pin, could have prevented the metal shaft from becoming detached and flying free.
That allegation is now part of the family’s broader argument that the company should have recognized the potential danger and taken additional steps to prevent a similar failure.
However, the existence and legal significance of any previous incident will have to be established through evidence and the court process.
It is not the same as a court finding that Franklin Sports knew its product was dangerous or acted improperly.
Lucy’s family watched the tragedy unfold
The lawsuit also describes the emotional impact of the accident on Lucy’s family.
According to the complaint, Lucy’s siblings witnessed what happened.
Her parents were nearby and heard her scream before rushing to help.
The family’s attorneys say Lucy’s siblings suffered severe emotional distress after witnessing their sister’s catastrophic injury. The lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of Lucy’s estate and her siblings.
Lucy was transported for emergency medical treatment, but the extent of her injuries was devastating.
Her father, Jesse Morgan, later wrote about the family’s experience and the loss of his daughter.
Jesse is a pastor at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway, New Jersey, and has publicly shared aspects of Lucy’s life and the family’s grief following her death.
In one of the family’s accounts of the tragedy, he described how a normal afternoon during their vacation suddenly became an emergency when the racket broke.
A little girl’s life beyond the accident
Lucy was more than the victim described in a lawsuit.
She was a daughter and a sister, and her family has continued to remember her through stories about her personality, faith and childhood.
Her father previously described finding Lucy’s prayer journal after the family returned home from Maine.
The journal contained drawings, Bible-related notes and messages reflecting her faith.
For her parents, that journal became one of the personal reminders of their daughter after her death.
Jesse Morgan told Fox News Digital that he believed Lucy had a strong faith and described finding the journal as a meaningful gift during an otherwise devastating period.
Those personal memories have now become part of the larger story surrounding the lawsuit.
The legal case is seeking accountability, but for Lucy’s parents, no financial award can change what happened on June 1, 2024.
What the lawsuit is asking for
The Morgan family’s lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, although it does not specify a dollar amount.
The claims include funeral expenses, emotional distress and damages connected to the loss of Lucy’s companionship and the impact of her death on her family.
The case is a wrongful-death and product-liability action, meaning the family is attempting to establish that the manufacturer should be legally responsible for the circumstances that allegedly led to Lucy’s fatal injury.
Franklin Sports is now being asked to defend those allegations in court.
The company has not publicly accepted responsibility for Lucy’s death.
Instead, its statement emphasized sympathy for the Morgan family and said that because litigation is pending, it could not comment on the specific allegations.
That leaves the central questions for the legal process.
Was the badminton racket defective?
Was the connection between the metal shaft and handle adequately designed and manufactured?
Did the product require an additional safety mechanism?
Were consumers adequately warned?
And, perhaps most importantly, did Franklin Sports know or have reason to know that a similar failure could cause serious injury?
Those are questions that cannot be settled simply by the filing of a lawsuit.
They will require evidence.
More than two years later, the case is moving into court
Lucy died in June 2024.
More than two years later, her family has now taken legal action against the manufacturer of the badminton set.
The timing means the lawsuit is not reopening the circumstances of Lucy’s death in the sense of a new criminal investigation. Instead, it is bringing the family’s allegations into a civil court, where the issue will be whether Franklin Sports bears legal responsibility for the product and the fatal consequences of its alleged failure.
The company will have the opportunity to respond to the claims and present its own evidence and defenses.
For now, the allegations in the complaint remain allegations.
But the family’s reason for filing the case is clear.
They believe Lucy’s death was preventable.
They believe the badminton racket should not have been capable of separating in a way that sent a sharp metal shaft flying toward a child.
And they want the court to determine whether the manufacturer should be held responsible.
A summer vacation that ended with a loss
The Morgan family had gone to Maine expecting to spend time together.
The children were playing outside.
Lucy was nearby.
Then, in a matter of seconds, a piece of a badminton racket separated and struck her.
She was taken to the hospital and fought for her life for four days.
She never returned home.
Now her family is asking a court to examine the product that was involved in the accident and determine whether a design or manufacturing failure contributed to the death of their 6-year-old daughter.
Franklin Sports says it is committed to product quality and safety and has expressed sympathy for the family, but the company has not commented on the specific allegations because the litigation is pending.
The case will now have to move through the legal system.
For Lucy’s family, however, the lawsuit represents something more than a claim for damages.
It is an attempt to find an answer to a question that has remained with them since that terrible afternoon in Maine:
Could Lucy’s death have been prevented?
That question will ultimately be left to the evidence and the court to decide.