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Cam Skattebo has become as elusive to lawyers as he is to opposing defenses.
The former Arizona State running back has been added to a lawsuit against the school brought by former teammate Mattheos Katergaris, after the plaintiff’s lawyers spent weeks trying to serve him with papers.
In the suit, Katergaris claims Skattebo injured him in a July 2023 practice incident involving a golf cart.
The suit alleges that Skattebo jumped repeatedly on the back of a golf cart Katergaris was on with another player, causing the cart to collapse and Katergaris to rupture his triceps tendon.
Katergaris, a walk-on offensive lineman, hasn’t played since and says he still has pain from the injury.
Skattebo, who finished fifth in Heisman voting last year, is being sued for one count of negligence resulting in injury along with ASU and the Arizona Board of Regents. Katergaris is seeking $300,000 in damages due to medical bills that are still unpaid. Skattebo was recently added as a third defendant on Jan. 27, weeks after the Sun Devils season ended in the College Football Playoff with a double-overtime loss to Texas.
The Arizona Board of Regents acknowledged Skattebo’s actions in a February response to the complaint after he was added to the case, which said it “has reason to believe Defendant Skattebo boarded the back of the golf cart while two other players were sitting on the rear section,” and that “Plaintiff ended up on the ground, and that this may have been due to a fall.”
The board of regents also asserted qualified immunity in the filing and a request for the case to be dismissed. An Arizona State spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The board of regents argued Katergaris doesn’t meet the requirements to claim negligence because he didn’t mitigate his claimed damages and incurred unnecessary expenses in his treatment, which it said the school paid for.
Neli Udulutch, Katergaris’s attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Front Office Sports, but told The Arizona Republic the board left out key details in its request to dismiss the case.
“They’re advocating for their client,” Udulutch said to The Arizona Republic. “But the truth of the matter is that his surgery wasn’t even provided at the university. They left that out of there. They did treat him at the student health center, but all of his physical therapy was done at a different location outside of the university’s domain, as well as the surgery.”
Skattebo was also named first-team All-American and is expected to be a mid-round draft pick in the NFL Draft, which starts on April 24.
Udulutch is aware that Skattebo is being added to the case shortly before he is expected to make life-changing money as an NFL player.
“I’m aware of the speculation and how that looks, but I can’t comment on the rationalization,” Udulutch told the newspaper. “All I can say is that we became aware that it was actually him that was on the back of the golf cart, jumping up and down, according to my client.”
Udulutch has found Skattebo hard to locate. Skattebo was at the NFL Draft Combine in Indianapolis last week, but wasn’t asked about the lawsuit. Process servers have unsuccessfully attempted to find Skattebo to deliver the lawsuit, which led to the summons being published in a Maricopa County newspaper.
“He’s been hard to pin down,” Udulutch said. “I have reason to believe he was in Florida preparing for the combine and then I know he was in Indy. I don’t know if he even lives in Arizona anymore. Maybe he’s bouncing around hotels. I just don’t know, so I was done chasing him. My hope is that he or his family will retain an attorney and help us out here, but otherwise we’ll have to go that route. It’s kind of an archaic procedure. It is definitely a last resort.”
Skattebo is expected to participate at ASU’s pro day on March 27. The case currently has a pretrial conference set for Feb. 11, 2026.
