“A man who sued Home Depot claiming that a prank left him glued to a restroom toilet seat has passed a lie detector test, a newspaper reported.” After Bob Dougherty made headlines with his allegations that employees of the home improvement chain failed to respond to his calls for help, “Ron Trzepacz, former director of operations in Nederland, where Dougherty lives, said that Dougherty claimed in 2004 that he was glued to a toilet seat in the town’s visitor center but pulled himself free.” However, Dougherty said he knew nothing of Trzepacz or of such an incident and offered to take the polygraph test, which was arranged by a local television station. (AP/CNN, Nov. 11). Amid the numerous puzzling aspects of the case, one aspect is reassuringly familiar, namely that it’s Not About the Money (see Nov. 7, etc.) “It’s not about the money. I want my health back. I want to be back to normal,’ Dougherty said. ‘I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody ever, ever again.'” His lawsuit asks $3 million for pain, humiliation and other losses. (AP/CNN, “Man glued to toilet may have history”, Nov. 8). Possibly the most groanworthy headline, of several candidates, was the Dallas Morning News’s: “Toilet allegation: Was it stunt No. 2?” (Nov. 8).
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In the complaint, is there a “butt for” analysis?
There’s a ‘briefs’ joke in there somewhere…
The thing that strikes me most is that in most of the accounts I have read, it appears that an ambulance arrived on scene and began to care for the fellow within 15 minutes of the incident. It can take longer than that to respond to a fire. How fast of a response would have been acceptable? Just how much fear, pain and huimilation can one suffer in a space of time that can be counted in seconds (900)?
Home Depot toilet-seat case
Vincent Carroll of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News has a good column on the incident (“Stick it to them”, Nov. 11). You know you’re in trouble when a “bad experience that your grandparents would have shrugged…
I noticed 3 toilet seat ads in the linked CNN news page. Is that what journalism is for, stories for advertising? None said “glue-free.”
[…] Vincent Carroll of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News has a good column on the incident (”Stick it to them“, Nov. 11). You know you’re in trouble when a “bad experience that your grandparents would have shrugged off after a day or two becomes the traumatic focus of your entire existence.” See Nov. 14. […]
[…] to sit down claims in his suit that the earlier, similar incident in Colorado (which we covered here and here) should have put Home Depot on notice that “a strong possibility that instances of […]