A jury awards a western Wisconsin teacher more than $350,000.

River Falls (WQOW) -- A jury awards a western Wisconsin teacher more than $350,000. The verdict came down last week more than four years after Ryan Bishop was injured at River Falls High School.

Bishop is a physical education teacher at the high school. He's also the baseball coach. According to a newspaper in Red Wing, Minnesota, Bishop was doing some work near the gym in 2004 when a motion sensor shut off the hallway lights. That article shows he tripped on the edge of a 'jump rope rack' and fell down. Court records show, he waited to go to the doctor for more than two months, but once he did, he was diagnosed with torn cartilage in his knee and a herniated disc in his back.

Those sensors were supposed to turn off the lights if no movement was detected, but Bishop claims he and other teachers had complained the sensors were malfunctioning. He also claims contractors never fixed the problem. Bishop filed a civil lawsuit, and last week the jury's verdict was handed down.

The jury awarded Bishop and his wife more than $363,000 -- much of that to pay for future medical care. The jury found the general contractor for the school, a company out of Waupun, was more 50% negligent for what happened, B&B Electric, out of Eau Claire, was 28% negligent, and the high school was 15% negligent.