Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘emotional distress’

“Eenie Meenie” redux

Remember the “Eenie Meenie Minie Mo” case? (Feb. 2003, Jan. 2004, Aug. 2005.) Here’s a variation which is almost as ridiculous, if less entertaining, from the Virgin Islands. Bad customer service as a cause of action:

During a layover in Puerto Rico, the passenger approached American’s ticket counter to verify her connecting flight to the Virgin Islands.  The ticket agent supposedly refused to return the passenger’s ticket and told her “to shut up and take a seat” and that she might not be scheduled to travel on any flight that day.

The passenger sued American, alleging claims under Virgin Island territorial law for negligence, breach of an implied contractual duty to ensure that employees “conduct themselves in a professional manner” and discrimination.  The passenger’s claims seemed to focus solely on her alleged emotional distress from being treated rudely; the opinion does not indicate that the agent’s conduct caused the passenger to miss her flight or suffer any other more tangible injury. 

Fortunately (unlike in the Eenie Meenie case) the court did not let this case get to trial; he granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant Airlines. As a result, American Airlines probably “only” spent in the low five digits to “win” this case.

Incidentally, I’ve heard the pace of life is slower in the Caribbean, but this flight took place in July 1996. The suit was filed two years later — it looks like just before the statute of limitations expired — in July 1998. Inexplicably, American Airlines did not move for summary judgment until eight years later, in July 2006; it’s not clear what was going on in the interim.

(But judging from one of the plaintiff’s previous trips (PDF) through the legal system, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that she might bear some responsibility for the long delay.)

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Guess what it isn’t about?

Last month, Mohammed A. Hussain went to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore for a medical procedure. Before it began, he wanted to pray; he alleges he was mistreated by a hospital security guard, who “proceeded to manhandle him, yell racial epithets at him, push him down the corridor and order him to exit the hospital.”

So, on Friday Hussain filed a $30 million lawsuit, alleging assault, battery and the ubiquitous emotional distress. But (you guessed) it:

Hussain’s attorney, David Ellin, said his client sued the hospital because he did not think executives were taking his case seriously enough.

“He felt the only way to get their attention and make any changes was to really put their feet to the fire and file a lawsuit,” Ellin said.

Ellin said Hussain’s aim with the suit is not to win compensation but to raise awareness about Islam and religious prejudices.

“This is really done to try to educate people on the religion of Islam and make people more tolerant and just educate them on different religious backgrounds,” Ellin said.

And if he happens to also get $30 million for it, hey, so much the better.

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One Big Happy Family

No, this case isn’t going to get messy: in 2004, a Long Island couple went to a fertility clinic to help them get pregnant with a biological child. Apparently, the clinic botched the procedure by using the wrong sperm (Oops!); the couple figured it out when they noticed that the child was black and they weren’t.

So they sued the clinic for malpractice and infliction of emotional distress. (Just for good measure, they sued their obstetrician, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual fertilization; the court dismissed that claim. Gee, I wonder why medical malpractice insurance rates are so high.) The court rejected the emotional distress claim, ruling that (as most courts do) a baby being born is not an injury to the parents, but it allowed the malpractice claim to proceed.

Speaking of emotional distress, the judge handling the case quoted the parents as saying things every child wants to hear from her parents:

“[W]e are reminded of this terrible mistake each and every time we look at her.”

and

“We are conscious of and distressed by this mistake each and every time we appear in public.”

Read On…

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Chutzpah, railroad edition

In 2004, Phillip Waisonovitz accidentally killed his co-worker, Robert Ard, by backing over him with a train. Ard’s family sued, claiming negligent supervision, and just won $4.3 million from the employer, Metro-North Railroad. So that settles that, right? Close, but not quite. As the Associated Press explains:

Phillip Waisonovitz, the engineer who backed up the engine, became distraught after learning it had struck Ard.

(I’ll wager Ard wasn’t thrilled, either!)

He has been out of work on disability since then with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Waisonovitz has filed suit against the railroad company and Ard’s estate. That case is pending.

In case you think you misread that, I’ll explain it again: Waisonovitz killed Ard, and is suing Ard for the mental anguish Ard’s death caused him. The nerve of Ard!

In case you were wondering, workers comp laws generally don’t apply to railroads.

[CORRECTION: As can be seen in the comments, there’s an important correction to this story. The media report I relied upon got the story wrong; Waisonovitz did not sue Ard. Waisonovitz only sued Metro-North; it was the railroad that brought Ard into the case.

This hardly makes Mr. Waisonovitz a poster child for personal responsibility; his lawsuit still boils down to him suing the railroad because he feels bad that he ran someone over. But he isn’t suing the direct victim.]

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$2.50 for a dozen; $3,000,000 for a half dozen

In 2003, a lesbian couple from New Jersey paid about $3,000 to Repro Lab, a Manhattan sperm and embryo bank, to store six embryos created from eggs taken from one of the women. When the couple approached the bank last year in order to retrieve the embryos, so they could be implanted into the other woman, the bank told them it had lost the embryos.

The couple’s demand for compensation for this clear breach of contract, for “pain, injury, mental anguish and emotional distress”? $3,000,000. Plus punitive damages. (New York Post; AP)

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Extreme Makeover, Legal Edition

On Friday, a judge in Los Angeles dismissed claims by a set of five siblings against ABC Television, which airs Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, based on the novel legal theory that a lawsuit over breach of contract should actually be based upon some provision of the contract. The show had built a new house for the couple that took the siblings in after their parents were killed; after the show aired, the siblings sued ABC and the couple, claiming that they were driven out of the house and the couple had taken donations meant for the siblings.

The judge ruled that ABC’s contract was with the couple, not the siblings. Other allegations in the suit, including fraud, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, remain; it’s not clear from coverage whether any of these involve ABC. (AP, Mar. 3; earlier details of the proceedings from the Whittier Daily News, Feb 22.)

MSNBC’s Dan Abrams interviewed the plaintiffs at the time the suit was filed; their lawyer was unable to give a coherent legal explanation as to why ABC should be liable: Transcript: Aug. 16, 2005. (Deep pockets, anyone?)

Previously covered on Overlawyered Aug 12, 2005.

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Reading is fundamental

A man walks into a tattoo parlor (no, it isn’t the start of a joke) and asks for his favorite city to be put on his chest. Now the $250 order has become a lawsuit:

But the idea went terribly awry in a North Side tattoo parlor: He left with the word “CHI-TONW” inked into his skin where “CHI-TOWN” should have been.

Now Duplessis is suing the business and the tattoo artist for monetary damages in the 2005 mess after suffering what he says in his lawsuit was “emotional distress from public ridicule.”

At least he didn’t live in Albuquerque.

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Update: Indictments in Roberts sex/extortion case still pending

We first covered the case of Ted H. and Mary Schorlemer Roberts Jun. 13, 2004 and Sep. 3, 2005:

According to a story in the San Antonio Express-News, husband-and-wife legal partners Ted H. and Mary Schorlemer Roberts received money in a curious sequence of events. Mary, claiming to seek “no strings” discreet encounters, would seduce men over an Internet dating service. Ted would then write the men (in legal documents sometimes typed by Mary) and notify them that he planned to seek intrusive and public civil discovery to investigate whether the affair brought forward potential causes of action that were flimsy at best; the men would pay tens of thousands of dollars for a release and confidentiality agreement.

Now:

Two San Antonio, Texas, lawyers, married to each other, face a trial on theft charges based on allegations that the wife had sexual liaisons with four men whom the husband subsequently threatened with litigation unless they compensated him for his emotional distress.

You’ll never guess how the Roberts’ lawyer defends them:

[Michael] McCrum contends the state is trying to prosecute his clients for something that civil lawyers do all the time — send demand letters and present petitions they plan to file under Rule 202.

“By stretching statutory words to an unprecedented interpretation, the state seeks to criminalize as “theft the presentment and subsequent settlement of potential claims authorized under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure,” Mary and Ted Roberts alleged in one of several motions to quash their indictments that Harle dismissed in October 2006. …

[Baker Botts attorney Rod] Phelan says there is “a kernel of truth” in the point that McCrum is making. “The line between extortion or blackmail and making a demand to settle a colorable claim is gray,” he says.

The prosecutor distinguishes the two by noting that Ted Roberts was acting pro se. (Mary Alice Robbins, “Married Lawyers Face Trial for Payment Demands After Wife’s Affairs”, Texas Lawyer, Feb. 6). Note that these are theft, rather than extortion charges, however; a stretch, to be sure, but the prosecutors decided that Texas law does permit extortion in these circumstances. (It does seem rather appalling under the prosecutors’ view that the only thing Roberts needed to accomplish his blackmail is to expand the conspiracy to a third person.) Unfortunately for the extortion victims, their identities were revealed by the indictment and the Texas Lawyer coverage. A job for ReputationDefender?

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“Citing stress, cop sues man whose life he saved”

A heartwarming human-interest story, indeed: police Sgt. Ron Nametko of Denville, N.J. was hailed as a hero two years ago outline_NJ.gifwhen he “talked a suicidal sheriff’s officer into putting down his weapon and surrendering. Now the sergeant, who has since retired with a disability, is suing the man who pointed a loaded gun at him, citing emotional distress from the incident.” Nametko’s suit also names a neighbor, Doug Wilkins, accusing him of aiding and abetting Patrick O’Connor’s actions. (AP/Newsday, Nov. 2; Bill Swayze and Margaret McHugh, “After saving man’s life, ex-Denville cop decides to sue him”, Newark Star-Ledger, Nov. 2).

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