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Who Do We Appreciate?
Two high school baton twirlers, who were cut from the majorettes program at North Haven High in Connecticut, haved filed a lawsuit suing the coach, the athletic director and the high school principal, claiming the majorette coach violated their civil rights by cutting them from the team without just cause.
The mothers of the twirlers hired a lawyer to argue that, under the 14th Amendment, being a majorette is a noncompetitive activity that shouldn't exclude anyone. "We're just protecting our rights," said one of the mothers.
U.S. District Judge Alfred Covello let the principal off the hook, saying she was not properly notified of the lawsuit. The case is now proceeding against the coach and the athletic director.
The mothers say they do not want money or any other kind of compensation besides restoring the girls on the team. "Just treat them fairly," said Dolores Tata, one of the mothers involved.
But the girls have no case, argues Robert Rhodes, a Halloran & Sage attorney representing the defendants. The girls tried out and didn't make the squad because they simply weren't good enough, he says. "This lawsuit is nothing more than legal blackmail," Rhodes says.
The road from high school gym to federal courtroom is marked with all the signposts of teen-age pettiness. As a freshman, one of the girls, Rebecca Mickolyczk, says she saw the majorettes on the football field and decided to try out. "It grabbed our attention," adds the other girl involved, Stephanie Tata.
They made the team for their sophomore year. According to the girls, they had an understanding that once they made the majorette squad, they were on for good, and would not have to try out for the rest of their high school career.
When it came time for tryouts again their junior year, the coach informed the team that everyone would have to audition, including the kids already on the squad. The girls agreed, fully confident they would make the team again. But when the list was posted, they found out they were wrong.
They got cut from the squad, even though both girls say they were just as good at twirling -- if not better -- than the rest of the team.
Their mothers met with the school athletic director, who informed them that the girls were cut because of safety reasons -- the coach did not want more than 16 girls on the squad, due to the dangers of careening batons on a gym floor.
But that's not what Tata and Mickolyczk think. In their lawsuit, they say the coach cut them at the bidding of the clique of girls they didn't get along with.
"[The coach] changed the manner of selecting team members for the purpose of eliminating team members who were unpopular with their classmates or who had otherwise fallen into disfavor with the team's captain's and leaders..." the lawsuit says. "In fact, [the coach's] true motive and intent were to remove [Tata and Mickolyczk] from the team as part of a malicious and bad faith effort to injure [the girls] by removing [them] from the team."
Majorettes is not a competitive sport like basketball, Dolores Tata says, so the girls shouldn't be subjected to the same standards.
The idea that the coach cut the girls to appease others on the team has no merit, Rhodes says. The team had more girls than they could handle and had to let some go. At the tryouts, the coach kept detailed score sheets on each majorette, the lawyer says, and Tata and Mickolyczk just couldn't cut it.
"This version of events is proposed by a couple of high school kids who have to have a reason why they were cut from the team," Rhodes says. "It can't be because they're not good enough."
Dolores Tata and Kathi Mickolyczek say they simply would like to settle the case and have their daughters reinstated. But Rhodes says his clients have no interest in settling, because they don't think they did anything wrong. Besides, if they settle, Rhodes says it could open the floodgates for other lawsuits -- every time a kid gets cut from a sport, their parents might go to court.
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A Big Fax Boo Boo.
It looks like a Hooters restaurant located in Augusta, GA, has gone "bust", having recently filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of a $12 million judgment entered against it in a class action lawsuit.
The class action lawsuit centered around a third party, hired by Hooters, that sent out unsolicited fax advertisements to hundreds of folks. Lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the 1,321 recipients, each of whom received six fax advertisements from Hooters.
Hooters initially tried to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that it was the third party, not Hooters, who actually sent the facsimile transmissions, and that the law prohibits only interstate transmissions, not transmissions within a single state, as occurred in Hooters’ case.
A Georgia appeals court rejected these arguments, as have other courts, paving the way for trial, where a jury ultimately held that Hooters violated the law. The plaintiffs opted to receive statutory damages, which amounted to $4 million.
Because the jury also found that Hooters had knowingly violated the law, the judge had discretion to triple this amount, and did so -- pushing the total to $12 million. While each plaintiff in the lawsuit will receive about $6,000 for those pesky six faxes received, the lawyers will rack up over $4 million in fees.
Now that will buy a bunch of chicken wings, won't it?
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A Jarring Experience.
A West Virginia convenience store worker was awarded a whopping $2,699,000 in punitive damages after she injured her back opening a pickle jar, this according to a report in the Charleston Daily Mail.
The 'injured' worker also received $130,066 in compensation and $170,000 for emotional distress.
A State Supreme Court Justice, Spike Maynard, called this award an "outrageous sum." In his dissenting opinion, he wrote, "I know an excessive punitive damages award when I see one, and I see one here."
The court, however, upheld most of the punitive damages. Net result: $2.2 million.
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A Little Too Much Booty.
Meredith Berkman, seeking $50 million, filed one of the first anti-fat lawsuits against the manufacturer of a snack food named Pirate's Booty. It looks like eating too much Pirate's Booty had added too much booty to Ms. Berkman's booty.
In December, 2001, the Good Housekeeping Institute tested Pirate's Booty, which is basically flavored puffed rice, and found that it contained 147 calories and 8.5 grams of fat, while its label said it contained only 120 calories and 2.5 grams of fat.
The manufacturer, Robert's American Gourmet Foods (a subsidiary of Keystone Foods), blamed the problem on a change in its manufacturing process and immediately recalled the product from store shelves.
Nearly four months after the recall, Berkman filed a $50 million class-action lawsuit against Robert's Foods, claiming "emotional distress" and "weight gain...mental anguish, outrage and indignation." The complaint claims to represent all consumers who ruined their diets and had to spend more time at the gym because they ate mislabeled Pirate's Booty.
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Gambler Says Casinos Allowed Him to Lose a Million While Drunk.
A California man is suing the Las Vegas Hilton and Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, claiming the casinos were negligent in allowing him to gamble away more than $1 million while he was intoxicated.
According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, executives of the Las Vegas Hilton and Mandalay Bay supposedly knew Stephen Roel was drunk as a skunk and yet extended him hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit anyway.
Roel claims in his suit that he had been a customer of the Hilton for more than 15 years in September 1999 when he made arrangements for a weekend at the casino.
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Among other odds and ends, the lawsuit states the following:
In exchange for his gambling at the casino, Hilton executives agreed to pay for his roundtrip flight from San Diego, his lodging, food and beverages,
Roel, who was known to be a skilled and knowledgeable player, had a $50,000 credit line at the casino, which he rarely went over,
However, on the weekend of Sept. 29-30, Roel was drinking heavily and betting "irrationally and erratically" from the time he walked in the door with $117,000 and dumped it all on a blackjack table,
Despite the fact that executives should have known or knew Roel was drunk, they extended him a credit line of about $840,000, and finally (big surprise),
Hilton executives' behavior violated their own policy and the regulations of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
According to the lawsuit, someone affliated with Mandalay Bay arranged for Roel to stay at that hotel-casino the same weekend. Once he was there, executives extended him a line of credit despite knowing he was drunk. That credit line was for more than $100,000, the lawsuit states.
Mandalay Bay executives continued to extend Roel credit after his wife and sister flew in and asked them not to accept his bets, extend his credit line or serve him drinks, the lawsuit states.
Roel, who entered a treatment center since that weekend, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, recovery of the money he bet that weekend and forgiveness of the debts. He also wants the Hilton and the Mandalay Bay to be precluded from seeking criminal prosecution and from reporting him to TRW.
Come on, Stephen, did you also stumble into the casino? And if you would have won a million dollars in your drunken stupor, would you have given it back? Fat chance.
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Gambler Says Casinos Allowed Him to Lose a Million While Drunk.
A California man is suing the Las Vegas Hilton and Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, claiming the casinos were negligent in allowing him to gamble away more than $1 million while he was intoxicated.
According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, executives of the Las Vegas Hilton and Mandalay Bay supposedly knew Stephen Roel was drunk as a skunk and yet extended him hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit anyway.
Roel claims in his suit that he had been a customer of the Hilton for more than 15 years in September 1999 when he made arrangements for a weekend at the casino.
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Among other odds and ends, the lawsuit states the following:
In exchange for his gambling at the casino, Hilton executives agreed to pay for his roundtrip flight from San Diego, his lodging, food and beverages,
Roel, who was known to be a skilled and knowledgeable player, had a $50,000 credit line at the casino, which he rarely went over,
However, on the weekend of Sept. 29-30, Roel was drinking heavily and betting "irrationally and erratically" from the time he walked in the door with $117,000 and dumped it all on a blackjack table,
Despite the fact that executives should have known or knew Roel was drunk, they extended him a credit line of about $840,000, and finally (big surprise),
Hilton executives' behavior violated their own policy and the regulations of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
According to the lawsuit, someone affliated with Mandalay Bay arranged for Roel to stay at that hotel-casino the same weekend. Once he was there, executives extended him a line of credit despite knowing he was drunk. That credit line was for more than $100,000, the lawsuit states.
Mandalay Bay executives continued to extend Roel credit after his wife and sister flew in and asked them not to accept his bets, extend his credit line or serve him drinks, the lawsuit states.
Roel, who entered a treatment center since that weekend, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, recovery of the money he bet that weekend and forgiveness of the debts. He also wants the Hilton and the Mandalay Bay to be precluded from seeking criminal prosecution and from reporting him to TRW.
Come on, Stephen, did you also stumble into the casino? And if you would have won a million dollars in your drunken stupor, would you have given it back? Fat chance.
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A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On.
A Florida woman, who was taken off an airplane in Dallas and asked to pull a vibrating sex toy out of one of her checked bags, has sued Delta Airlines citing public humiliation. The woman, who was already on board awaiting takeoff with her husband, had her name called over the airplane’s PA system and was then asked to walk with airport officials down to the tarmac.
When advised by a security agent that something was vibrating in one of her bags, she told the agent that it was an “adult toy” that she and her husband had purchased on a trip to Las Vegas. Unlike most toys, I guess batteries were included in the purchase.
She claims that she was forced to open her bag and take the vibrating toy out of the luggage – and here’s the humiliation part of the lawsuit – she had to hold it up for visible viewing. She was then allowed to repack and return to her seat for the flight back to Florida.
The lawsuit alleges that passengers on the side of the plane facing the unveiling of the out of control “toy” saw everything (gasp!!!!!) and that three male Delta employees “began laughing hysterically” and made “obnoxious and sexually harassing comments.”
The woman told a newspaper that she didn’t want to be embarrassed any more than she already had been … then promptly filed the lawsuit – which promptly made her the butt of talk show hosts’ jokes around the country.
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Belly Itchers Have Feelings Too, You Know!
If you play or even watch sports, you know there is small a risk of injury. As someone who has played football, soccer, basketball, baseball, Ultimate frisbee, and even raced bicycles over the years, I've managed to injure myself in every sport I've ever played.
I've been hit with baseballs, hit with bats, power tackled by guys twice my size, kicked in the shins, kicked in the head, whacked in the groin, sprained both ankles several times, wiped out on my bike on a number of occasions, and even limped through an entire soccer season with tendinitis.
In the past, thousands of people have been injured playing baseball. They've been hit by pitches, hit with cleats, hit by other players, hit with bats, and even hit with balls smacked back at them. Jose Canseco, the Oakland A's outfielder, was once bonked on the head with a flyball, causing it to bounce over the outfield fence, resulting in a home run.
And every baseball player knows any of this can happen. Well, maybe not the Jose Canseco thing, but it would be pretty cool if it did.
So if baseball players know all this, why is Daniel Hannant of Pittsfield, Illinois suing the maker of Louisville Slugger bats for over $1 million?
On April 18, the Chicago Tribune published a copy of a lawsuit filed in the Cook County Circuit Court by Hannant's attorney against Hillerich & Bradsby, the makers of Louisville Slugger.
According to the lawsuit, on April 1, 2000, 17-year-old Hannant was pitching ("we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!") for his high school baseball team, the Pittsfield Saukees, against the Calhoun Pioneers.
The Calhoun team was using an "Air Attack 2 Model BB 12 [-5] Louisville Slugger TPX Bat," a high-tech aluminum bat. The batter hit one of Hannant's pitches and nailed him right in the head, causing "serious and life-threatening injuries."
There is no word whether Hannant's belly itching abilities were affected, although he did win the Saukee Pride award that year.
According to the lawsuit, "Due to H&B's design and construction of the Bat, the exit speed of the baseball from the Bat was so great that Hannant was unable to react to the baseball so as to protect himself from being struck, and the baseball struck him in the head."
First, let's forget that it should be "Owing to" or "Because of" H&B's design. Since we're talking about serious injuries, I won't quibble about the attorney's grossly incorrect usage of "Due to."
Second, he could have said "The ball flew so quickly, Hannant didn't have time to protect himself," but that doesn't sound very lawyerly, and isn't worth $200 an hour.
Instead, let's look at the assertion the Bat was purposely designed and engineered to hit a baseball harder, faster, and farther than a traditional wooden bat.
No kidding! That's called a "competitive advantage." Baseball players and coaches are constantly looking for ways to hit baseballs harder, faster, and farther, and the easiest way to do this is with a high-tech bat.
Bat manufacturers would have a hard time selling bats made of foam rubber and baseball would be more boring than it already is if baseballs weren't hit harder, faster, and farther.
For those of you who didn't know high school players can use aluminum bats, let me point out that only professional players use wooden bats. College, high school, and even little league players can use aluminum bats, as can men and women softball players.
Why? So players can hit a ball harder, faster, and farther. It says so right on the bat. That's called a "marketing feature." Another bat manufacturer actually boasts an exit speed of 115 mph.
Although people use high-tech bats for this reason, Hannant says that H&B had a duty to design the Bat so it was not defective or "unreasonably dangerous" when it was used for its original purpose.
He also asserts that H&B failed to place warning labels that said the Bat, "could cause the baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck."
Hundreds of pitchers have been hit this way, and it has nothing to do with the bat. It has everything to do with where the pitcher is standing.
When I was 12, I was pitching in a 3-man sandlot game with my friend Michael and his 19-year-old brother Jimmy.
Jimmy whacked a screamer that nailed me in the thigh, and I cried and rolled around on the ground for ten minutes while they waited for me to finish. That's what happens when you stand right in front of the batter and throw balls at him.
So why doesn't Hannant sue the batter for hitting him, or the Calhoun Pioneers for using a dangerous bat? Or even better, why doesn't Hannant sue the Illinois High School (athletic) Association for allowing teams to use aluminum bats in the first place?
Because none of them have $1 million, that's why. Hillerich & Bradsby does.
Remember, it's only Major League Baseball that uses wooden bats. Everyone else can use all the high-tech bats they want.
And that's where the problem lies. With all the documented cases of teenagers and kids being killed or seriously injured after being struck by a ball hit with one of these bats, organizers, school administrators, and coaches are still using them.
If anyone is more responsible for Hannant's injury than Hillerich & Bradsby, it's the adults who allowed the high-tech bat to be used.
I don't propose the banning of aluminum bats altogether. They're great for adults, whether it's city-league softball, college baseball, or just some guys getting together to whack each other over the head. But no one under the age of 18, especially little kids, should use aluminum bats. They're dangerous, and need to be banned from youth baseball.
The bats, not the kids.
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Birds of a Feather Sue Together.
The California Supreme Court in August of 2002 made it more difficult for bystanders to sue physicians for emotional distress.
The case, Bird v. Saenz, stemmed from a Nov. 30, 1994, incident in Los Angeles County hospital.
On that day, Janice Bird, the adult daughter of Nita Bird, brought her mother to the hospital for outpatient surgery.
About an hour to 90 minutes into the surgery, something went wrong with the procedure. About that same time, one of Bird's sisters arrived at the hospital. The two daughters then witnessed doctors rushing their mother to emergency surgery.
According to court papers, Janice Bird saw her mother "being rushed down the hallway." Nita Bird was bright blue and her bed was on an angle so that her head was almost touching the ground.
The daughters sued, NOT for malpractice, but because they had to witness the incident. These women sued the doctors and the hospital -- the same doctors who were rushing to assist their mother -- for causing emotional distress to THEM.
The case went all the way to the California Supreme Court, where the court ruled against the girls.
Source: AmedNews.com, Septemeber 2, 2002, "Women 'distressed' by seeing doctors rush to help mom."
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Busted Up Side the Head.
Bennie Casson filed a lawsuit in Belleville, Ill., against PT's Show Club for its negligence in allowing a stripper to "slam" her breasts into his "neck and head region" as he watched her, a little too close to the stage.
Casson claims in his lawsuit that dancer Susan Sykes (aka "Busty Heart"), who claims to have show business's biggest chest at 88 inches, gave him a "bruised, contused, lacerated" neck.
Carson has filed suit claiming that the "gifted" performer slammed her breasts into his head and neck, causing "emotional distress, mental anguish and indignity."
The $200,000 lawsuit states that Carson was "bruised, contused, lacerated and made sore" by Heart's breasts, which reportedly weigh in at 40 pounds apiece.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Busted Up Side the Head.
Bennie Casson filed a lawsuit in Belleville, Ill., against PT's Show Club for its negligence in allowing a stripper to "slam" her breasts into his "neck and head region" as he watched her, a little too close to the stage.
Casson claims in his lawsuit that dancer Susan Sykes (aka "Busty Heart"), who claims to have show business's biggest chest at 88 inches, gave him a "bruised, contused, lacerated" neck.
Carson has filed suit claiming that the "gifted" performer slammed her breasts into his head and neck, causing "emotional distress, mental anguish and indignity."
The $200,000 lawsuit states that Carson was "bruised, contused, lacerated and made sore" by Heart's breasts, which reportedly weigh in at 40 pounds apiece.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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One or Two Scoops?
A Phoenix mother, who admitted lacing her daughters' ice cream with prescription tranquilizers, is suing a health care provider and others, saying they are responsible for her drug-induced delirium at the time.
Jodi Lynn Henry, 38, who was acquitted in July of attempted murder charges, filed a medical malpractice claim in Maricopa County Superior Court against a nurse practitioner and a mental-health care provider.
The lawsuit blames the defendants for the "medical complications" that caused Henry to spike her daughters' ice cream with tranquilizers on October 26, 2000.
The lawsuit does not detail how Henry was allegedly harmed. But during her trial, defense attorney Bernardo Garcia argued that Henry was improperly medicated by a Jewish Family and Children's Services nurse practitioner, resulting in the drug-induced delirium.
On the day Henry tranquilized her daughters and overdosed on the same drugs, 15 medications were roiling around in her system, an expert testified at the trial. As an aside, Henry told Phoenix police she thought the drugs would put them all to sleep and they would awaken in paradise.
What was she looking for, a lawsuit nirvana?
The three were hospitalized and recovered.
dying man gathered his lawyer, doctor and clergyman at his bed side and handed each of them an envelope containing $25,000 in cash. He made them each promise that after his death and during his repose, they would place the three envelopes in his coffin. He told them that he wanted to have enough money to enjoy the next life.
A week later the man died. At the Wake, the Lawyer and Doctor and Clergyman, each concealed an envelope in the coffin and bid their old client and friend farewell. By chance, these three met several months later. Soon the Clergyman, feeling guilty, blurted out a confession saying that there was only $10,000 in the envelope he placed in the coffin. He felt, rather than waste all the money, he would send it to a Mission in South America. He asked for their forgiveness. The Doctor, moved by the gentle Clergymans sincerity, confessed that he too had kept some of the money for a worthy medical charity. The envelope, he admitted, had only $8000 in it. He said, he too could not bring himself to waste the money so frivolously when it could be used to benefit others.
By this time the Lawyer was seething with self-righteous outrage. He expressed his deep disappointment in the felonious behavior of two of his oldest and most trusted friends. "I am the only one who kept his promise to our dying friend. I want you both to know that the envelope I placed in the coffin contained the full amount. Indeed, my envelope contained my personal check for the entire $25,000."
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Lawyers In Court
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A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand in a trial a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?" She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a rising big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?" She again replied, "Why, yes I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to baby sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He's lazy, bigoted, he has a drinking problem. The man can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him."
At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said with menace, "If either of you asks her if she knows me, you'll be jailed for contempt |
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A Marriage Made In Heaven
A young couple in love were in an automobile accident the night before their wedding, and both were killed. In heaven, they approached St. Peter. "My fiance and I really miss the opportunity to have celebrated our wedding vows. Is it possible for people in heaven to get married?"
St. Peter replied, "I'll tell you what -- after you have gone through an appropriate waiting period, we will talk about it again."
Five years pass and the couple still wanted to get married. They approached St. Peter again, and he told them, "I'm sorry, I know that five years was a long time to wait, but there's a problem. You'll have to wait a little bit longer."
Another five years pass, when St. Peter excitedly approached the couple. "Your wait is over, and you may marry now. Thanks for your patience."
The couple got married.
Unfortunately, soon after the wedding, the couple realized that they were not compatible. Going to see St. Peter, they asked if their was such a thing as divorce in heaven. St. Peter gave them a cold stare, and said sternly, "Look, it took us ten years to find a minister up here. Do you have any idea how long it'll take to find a lawyer? |
