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Archive for February, 2005
Is $8M enough for being accused of sexual assault?
In December, Kevin Lindsey, a public school teacher and principal for thirty years, was arrested and “charged with two counts of child abuse, two counts of second-degree sex offense and one count of third-degree sex offense.” His name, and the allegations that he had abused two students in the late 1970s, made headlines in his community. Three weeks later, the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence about the girls’ “recovered memories” and everything went back to normal for Mr. Lindsey. Right?
Not quite. Though he has been reinstated as the principal of his school after briefly being reassigned to the district office, one can only imagine the long-term damage done to his reputation. Now he has filed suit against the women, asking for $8 million for “malicious prosecution, defamation and invasion of privacy.” (Sara Neufeld, “Principal files lawsuit against accusers,” Baltimore Sun, Feb. 2).
A sign of things to come?
In a rare move, an Israeli court has awarded “American”-style punitive damages against defendants in an assault case. In addition to awarding 700,000 shekels (NIS) for direct damages, the court also awarded 300,000 NIS in punitive damages both to teach the criminals a lesson and to deter similar conduct. The Israeli courts have had the authority to issue punitive damages but were waiting for a “suitable” case. The judge said in issuing the ruling: “The awarding of punitive damages is indeed reserved for unusual and extraordinary cases, and I firmly believe that this is an unusual and extraordinary case. It is not every day that two people conspire to grievously harm another, pouncing on him with knives, practically slaughtering him and causing him such extensive wounds.” (Anat Roeh, “Teaching criminals an expensive lesson in the ‘American’ way,” Haaretz Daily, Jan. 31). It will be interesting to see if judges in Israel continue to reserve punitive damages for such extraordinary cases or if this is the beginning of a more “American” system of compensation.
Dillard’s pays $15M to settle escalator suit
Dillard’s has agreed to pay $15 million to the family of a young girl who lost three fingers when they became trapped in an escalator in one of its Florida stores. At the time of the settlement, the jury had already awarded the family $9.4 million in compensatory damages and was about to hear evidence in the punitive damage phase. The department store chain admitted some liability for the accident, because the escalator had a history of catching shoppers’ shoes. (“Dillard’s must pay $9 million to girl maimed by escalator, South Florida Sun Sentinel,” Feb. 1)
The jury, however, assigned only fifteen percent of the blame to the little girl’s mother, who left her five year-old unsupervised in the store. At the time of the incident, the girl was playing on the down escalator, running and jumping up it in the wrong direction. She slipped while doing so and her fingers became trapped. (Jamie Thompson, “Dillard’s blames escalator accident on girl’s misuse,” St. Pete Times, Jan. 28)
Apparently, some members of the jury have not seen the movie Mallrats, which clearly warns of this danger. At least two jurors wanted to give the little girl all $35 million asked by her lawyers. (Jamie Thompson, “Settlement Surprises Jurors,” St. Pete Times, Feb. 2)
A thank you and an introduction
I apologize to all that turned out hoping for a fantastic new guestblogger. Sadly, it is only me – Greg from the Sports Law Blog. Thank you to Walter and Ted for the gracious invitation. This is a topic I am very interested in and I look forward to contributing. Please feel free to email me if you have any comments or suggestions. More posts will follow later today.
More on the $105 million Aramark verdict
We previously reported (Jan. 21) on Daniel Lanzaro’s drunk driving accident litigation; the little girl he paralyzed won a $105 million verdict against Aramark over beer sales at Giants Stadium because Lanzaro did some of his drinking there that day, in part by bribing a beer vendor to ignore Aramark’s two-beer-per-purchase rules. (Before the game, Lanzaro purchased a six-pack of Heineken; he did some drinking at two strip-clubs after the game, as well.) The New Jersey Law Journal has more on the case:
- The NFL defendants settled for $700,000, despite prevailing on a summary judgment motion;
- Judge Richard Donohue excluded evidence that Antonia Verni’s father might have prevented the injuries to his daughter had he put the two-year-old in a car seat rather than an adult seat-belt;
- Verni also sued Toyota; Verni’s Corolla didn’t fare well when Lanzaro’s pickup slammed into it head-on, and Toyota paid $190,000 to get out of the case;
- There’s collateral litigation to be had among plaintiffs’ family members and sets of lawyers over who gets the money. And, of course, there will be an appeal.
As previously reported, the judge also excluded evidence of Lanzaro’s two previous drunk-driving arrests. (Henry Gottlieb, “In Wake of Record $105M Verdict, Fee Fights and Coverage Contests Emerge”, Feb. 2; Wayne Coffey, “Wasted Innocence”, NY Daily News, Jan. 30; Kibret Markos, “Expert backs beer vendor”, The Record, Jan. 12). As famous sportswriter/treacle-author Mitch Albom notes, “Either your stadium goes dry, or people will leave drunk.”
A correction: we previously reported that the entire $135 million verdict was awarded against Aramark; in fact, $30 million of the verdict is damages against the drunk driver, Daniel Lanzaro, who had already settled for the limits of his insurance coverage. Aramark’s share is $30 million compensatory, $75 million punitive, and about $6-7 million in interest, with the interest continuing to accumulate. After he settled with the plaintiffs, Lanzaro changed his story to be more favorable to the Vernis’ case. (Ana M. Alaya, “Lawyer for Giants Stadium beer vendor loses bid for mistrial”, Newark Star-Ledger, Jan. 13).
An additional thought: A big argument for plaintiffs at trial was the claim that Aramark, which serves to the two million or so fans who attend football games at Giants stadium each year, had been averaging about seven complaints a year for selling beer to drunks, but only took disciplinary action a fraction of the time. The press hasn’t covered Aramark’s response to this assertion, but one wonders if fear of employment litigation stayed its hand. Earlier damned-if-you, damned-if-you-don’t files include Aug. 30.
Another point: A reader writes to note that Aramark was probably selling watered-down beer, which would be further evidence that post-game drinking was responsible for Lanzaro’s .266 blood-alcohol level, though, again, it shouldn’t matter: Aramark didn’t make the guy drive drunk.
Lack of proper photo permission: $15.6 million
In 1986 California model Russell Christoff was paid a modest sum for doing a photo shoot with a photographer working for Nestlé but assumed nothing had come of it. Years later, Christoff happened to glance at a jar of the company’s Taster’s Choice instant coffee and realized that the tiny “satisfied coffee drinker” face on its label was his, it having appeared there for years. And now a jury in Glendale, outside Los Angeles, has ordered the Swiss-based food company to pay Christoff $15.6 million for using his picture without adequate permission. “The jurors determined that Glendale-based Nestle should have paid Christoff $330,000 for the use of his likeness. They also voted to hand Christoff damages equal to 5% of the profit from Taster’s Choice sales during the six-year period, or $15.3 million,” invoking a California law intended to protect celebrities’ image. A company lawyer says the employee who pulled the photo for use thought the requisite permissions had been obtained on it. So now if you notice Legal being really, really prickly about signing off on any proposed use of photos picturing people, you’ll know why. (Meg James, “Verdict Creates Instant Millionaire”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 1; James Bone, “The tiny face on this jar of coffee has just cost Nestlé 15m”, The Times (UK), Feb. 2).
Canada: “Stripper paid after tiger attack”
“A stripper mauled by a tiger in an Ontario safari park has won $650,000 in damages because her scars meant she could no longer work, Canadian media said on Friday.” Jennifer-Anne Cowles was awarded “some $650,000 in damages, almost half of it to compensate for income she would have made as a stripper. Her musician boyfriend, David Balac, won Canadian $1.7 million ($1.37 million), because his injuries left him unable to work as an accordion player.” (Reuters/CNN, Jan. 31). James Taranto at WSJ “Best of the Web” comments (Jan. 31): “Canada has some surprising priorities if an accordion player is worth twice as much as a stripper.” (& letter to the editor Feb. 13).
Budget hit for $20M after NYC crash
“A Manhattan pedestrian, paralyzed in an accident caused by a driver of a rental car, has been awarded a $20 million judgment against Budget Rent-A-Car”. The driver of the car had run a red light and allegedly was driving with a suspended license; a lawyer for the victim, Ethan Ruby, said his client might not have recovered if not for New York’s uniquely harsh vicarious-liability law which puts firms that rent or lease cars on the hook for virtually all accidents caused by their customers. (Dareh Gregorian, “Car-Rent Firm Hit for $20M”, New York Post, Feb. 1). For more on the New York law, see Sept. 5, Apr. 25, and Apr. 4, 2004 and links from there.
“Father sues over grade”
Another parent’s pro se complaint: this time Luping Qu is suing the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, “asking a judge to overrule a teacher who gave his daughter a bad grade.” (Raleigh News & Observer, Feb. 1).