quote:A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbor said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts. The pair were ordered to pay $871.70 plus $39 in court costs after neighbor Wanita Renea Young, 49, filed a lawsuit complaining that the unsolicited cookies, left at her house after the girls knocked on her door, had triggered an anxiety attack that sent her to the hospital the next day. Taylor Ostergaard, then 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitte, 18, paid the judgment on Thursday after a small claims court ruling by La Plata County Court Judge Doug Walker, a court clerk said on Friday. The girls baked cookies as a surprise for several of their rural Colorado neighbors on July 31 and dropped off small batches on their porches, accompanied by red or pink paper hearts and the message: "Have a great night." The Denver Post newspaper reported on Friday that the girls had decided to stay home and bake the cookies rather than go to a dance where there might be cursing and drinking.
quote:"The victory wasn't sweet," Young said Thursday afternoon. "I'm not gloating about it. I just hope the girls learned a lesson."
quote:Young said the girls showed "very poor judgment."
quote:The girls wrote letters of apology to Young, with Taylor saying in part, "I just wanted you to know that someone cared about you and your family."
The families had offered to pay Young's medical bills if she would agree to indemnify the families against future claims. Young wouldn't sign the agreement. She said the families' apologies rang false and weren't delivered in person, so she brought the matter to court.
posted
You know, when I was seven years old, someone left one of those candy hearts on my desk that said "Be Mine." And I spent nearly the next two months obsessing over who it might have been. It never occurred to me that, once I found out, I could have sued.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
To be fair, my apologies might have rang false in this situation as well. I'm not so good an actor that I could keep the contempt from my voice or writing tone.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I actually wonder what kind of mental illness Ms. Young possesses that would enable anonymous cookie deliveries to put her into the hospital.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'd have taken their case free of charge. I don't know what the rules for negligent infliction of mental distress are in that state, but I'd be surprised if they're supposed to cover this situation.
quote:The Denver Post newspaper reported on Friday that the girls had decided to stay home and bake the cookies rather than go to a dance where there might be cursing and drinking.
This sounds like something from the Brady Bunch movie.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I would not mind if someone left me cookies, as long as they were not filled with chocolate laxatives or poison.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Can some laywers or legal guru's help me understand why the girls are liable for this, if they had no prior knowledge of Mrs. Young's disability, and were acting in their normal behaviour of being good people? I'm curious is all, and would like better understanding.
posted
The "lesson" that these girls learned is that no good deed goes unpunished. Those who harm people who were only trying to be nice to them stifle such actions and make the world a worse place.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Ten thirty is late, yes, but any community that has a curfew for minors has one that is at least eleven or later... so judging on that is just an opinion.
Does this mean that every single person with social anxiety disorder can sue every person who makes them nervous or every crowd that they have to speak in front of? I really don't understand this ruling.
Also, I don't understand what cursing has to do with anything...
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Can some laywers or legal guru's help me understand why the girls are liable for this, if they had no prior knowledge of Mrs. Young's disability, and were acting in their normal behaviour of being good people? I'm curious is all, and would like better understanding.
I'm assuming the judge was using negligent infliction of mental distress, which is a cause of action all over the map.
Here's from a Colorado Supreme Court Case, Towns v. Anderson, 195 Colo. 517 (1978) - (can't link, it's Lexis):
quote:If a defendant's conduct is negligent as creating an unreasonable risk of causing either bodily harm or emotional disturbance to another, and it results in such emotional disturbance alone, without bodily harm or other compensable damage, defendant is not liable for such emotional disturbance. On the other hand, long continued nausea or headaches may amount to physical illness, which is bodily harm; and even long continued mental disturbance, as for example in the case of repeated hysterical attacks, or mental aberration, may be classified by the courts as illness, notwithstanding their mental character.
...
If an actor's conduct is negligent as creating an unreasonable risk of causing bodily harm to another otherwise than by subjecting him to fright, shock, or other similar and immediate emotional disturbance, the fact that such harm results solely from the internal operation of fright or other emotional disturbance does not protect the actor from liability.
I question whether the girls "creat[ed] an unreasonable risk of causing ... emotional disturbance," but causation in this case does seem to follow the Colorado rule.
posted
As to knowing about her disability, I don't know how that applies. There's something called the eggshell plaintiff doctrine, which says someone injured by your carelessness whose injury is worse because of a medical condition (brittle bones, say) can collect for all their damages, not just what a normal plaintiff would collect.
Courts are widely split on how this doctrine applies to eggshell psyches.
posted
In a later case, CSC states as dictum: "We have never recognized a cause of action for emotional distress grounded in negligence without proof that the plaintiff sustained physical injury or was in the 'zone of danger.'"
Does this mean the judge found a zone of danger? I wish this opinion were public.
The knock on the door at that late at night was deemed negligent. That negligence triggered the anxiety attack, which cause Mrs. Young to go to the hospital and gain medical bills.
So essentially the court is legally saying that 10:30 is too late to be knocking on someone's door. Good to know. I wonder what limit they DO have as to what time is ok, and what time is not.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Seriously. It WAS a good prank. A very very old farmhouse out in the Middle Of Nowhere Woods. No lights on, my friend and two others in the living room, just a few candles lighting the large cavernous room.
Three of us sneaking into the cellar and navigating by matchlight, carefully treading up the rickety wooden steps. Then scratching at the back of the basement door, a door that opens right into the dark living room.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
One of them says, "Did you hear that?!"
Scratch. Scratch.
Sloooowly start to open the door.
Screams, running, crying, laughing.
We did NOT expect the crying!
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
It must be a New England thing. Ever since my sister moved to Vermont she's been pranking people like that. One of them involved a hook...
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: She went to a hospital emergency room the next day, fearing that she had suffered a heart attack, court records said.
If she feared she suffered a heart attack, wouldn't she have had to go to the ER immediately , not the next day?
quote: The judge awarded Young her medical costs, but did not award punitive damages. He said he did not think the girls had acted maliciously but that 10:30 was fairly late at night for them to be out.
So the judge is judging that the girls have to pay because he thinks that 10:30 is late for them to be out, regardless of their actual curfew?
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote: If she feared she suffered a heart attack, wouldn't she have had to go to the ER immediately , not the next day?
I could see lawyers arguing that this very fact makes it impossible for her to prove that the cookies were in fact the cause of her troubles. I really think these girls must have had the worst lawyer on the planet to have the ruling go this way.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
An appeal might cost them more in lawyer fees than paying the fee, but I think this decision is so ridiculous that they could get enough donations to cover the costs.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Just another example of how our society littergates the courts with needless trash.
Perhaps the woman had an phobia connected with Sesame Street. She was paralyzed by a fear that the Cookie Monster was stalking her.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I do see how this woman could become victimized. I actually had a vision of her doorstep covered with cookies every day. I just don't understand how she could not foresee the backlash over this, and how silly it would make her look.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
"Learned a lesson" Yeah, don't give treats to old bats -_- Still, it's nice that they don't have to pay.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Meanwhile, Richard Ostergaard, father of Taylor, got a restraining order against Young's husband, Herb, in county court, claiming he continues to make harassing telephone calls to the Ostergaard residence.
Wow. This is going to be great when Lifetime turns it into a movie.
posted
I think this is why I try to get to know the people before I do nice things? no offense to the girls, but I think I remember a similar story when we would do things like this in scouts.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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