Campbell Hall, the elite K-12 private school in Studio City, is being sued by two renowned artists after their 15-year-old son was fatally pinned between two vehicles in the school’s parking lot earlier this year.
Cosmo Silverman was killed June 4 after the ninth-grade student was struck by a green Rivian SUV and pinned against a white SUV as he was crossing the parking lot minutes after the end of school.
Cosmo Silverman, 15, had just completed the ninth grade on June 4 when he was killed in a parking lot accident.
(Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP)
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges the school failed to make safety improvements to the parking lot despite previous complaints from parents about how student dismissal was handled.
“The school was put on notice by its community, by parents of the school that the parking lot was unsafe,” said Robert Glassman, an attorney representing Cosmo’s parents. “They knew there was a problem.”
Cosmo, according to the suit, was 15 at the time and had just completed the ninth grade when he was killed. He was the son of married artists Adam Silverman and Louise Bonnet, who are the plaintiffs in the suit.
“During his tragically short life, he left an indelible mark on his family, his friends, and everyone fortunate enough to know him,” the suit reads. “For Adam and Louise, the death of their son was not just the loss of a life, it was the loss of every heartbeat that filled their home with joy, every dream they had watched take shape, and every fortunate moment they had counted on sharing.”
Officials with Campbell Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Campbell Hall is a private Episcopal school whose notable alumni include Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen; Dakota and Elle Fanning; and Jrue, Aaron and Justin Holiday.
Cosmo’s parents claim that students had to regularly walk through lines of moving traffic in the parking lot with no pedestrian paths, and that the school’s protocol for school pickup violated state regulations.
Security footage from June 4 captured the incident, as well as the Rivian SUV and a white SUV in the school parking lot before the crash.
(Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP)
On the day of the incident, the Los Angeles Police Department received a call at 3:10 p.m. regarding a vehicle-on-pedestrian collision at the school, according to a department spokesperson. Cosmo was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Two additional minors and three adults received non-life-threatening injuries in the collision, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Since Cosmo’s death, the school has changed how students are picked up, the suit says.
“Before the incident, students routinely weaved through multiple lanes of traffic to access parked cars or to make their way to parents picking them up,” the suit reads. “Cosmo was one of many students navigating his way through a line of intermittently accelerating and stopping vehicles when he was pinned and killed.”
The suit also alleges that parents raised concerns about the configuration of the school’s parking lot during pickup times, and that school employees who were usually present to help direct traffic in the parking lot were not there on June 4.
“There were no adults there to supervise the kids,” Glassman said.
Glassman said the decision to file a lawsuit came after Cosmo’s parents were “stonewalled” by the school’s insurance company, and they were unable to reach a resolution.
“The lawsuit wasn’t filed out of anger, but out of necessity,” he said.
Since then the school has made several changes, according to the suit, including a fence separating the pickup line from a nearby lawn, a foot pathway for pedestrians, and a stop sign in front of the pathway, among other changes.
“Had these basic safety measures been implemented before June 4, 2025, Cosmo and his classmates would not have been able to walk in between the vehicular traffic waiting in the pickup line at the end of school, and this tragedy would have been averted,” the suit alleges. “The circumstances leading to this tragedy were entirely foreseeable.”
