http://www.greenvilleonline.com/news/2003/08/19/2003081912375.htm
Two. Million. Dollars.
TWO MILLION DOLLARS!
I’m leaving the country, I’m sorry.
Of course, I’ll do it right -after- I get a friend to work in a fast food place and doctor a receipt…
So, some random guy calls you a name and it’s suddenly worth $2 million?
Completely, utterly, insanely ridiculous.
Crap. All this time I’ve been living on the wrong side of town!
Good Greenville shoutout, ArrrMatey
Whoah! What is the justice system coming to when someone can file a lawsuit with a too-large request for an award?
Oh, wait. Nevermind.
For the record, I can completely understand this guy’s being pissed about the receipt, if true. He may be asking for a huge award in order to get Pizza Hut to settle out-of-court for something less. At the very least, if he didn’t type up the receipt himself – which should be easily verified by looking at the carbon-copy that Pizza Hut has – the employee that did it needs to get canned. And hopefully that’ll be the end of the story.
Daniel
Yummy… pepperoni and oysters.
okay, maybe I am just a trouble maker, but is anyone else wondering what racial slur is being referred to… it can’t be because it was illegible… they said it was typed
I loathe papers tht seem to have a nanny in chief rather than an editor in chief:dubious:
Sheesh, I couldn’t even get my automobile insurance company to pay a fair settlement for a legitimate claim!!!
That’s just ridiculous. Really over the line. You know? My co-workers (all men) and I have often joked about this, if I accuse one of them of sexual harrassment and then sue, the insurance company would have to pay, and we could all split the money. The stupid thing is, it would work too. Hell, there’re all these “stories” of women suing for some man smiling “lecherously” at them and crap.
Alright, don’t every other woman bare their claws now. I am ALL for compensation for legitimate sexual abuse here, but like this case, sometimes it just goes too far.
One word on a rcpt? I like the way the paper censors it so we can’t judge for ourselves (sarcasm).
And I’d like to know how on earth it was “typed” onto the rcpt. AFAIK, the rcpts are computer generated and contain the food/drink items, the price and the store info only, What? Someone went into the managers office, put the rcpt into a typewriter and added their own little insult to a customer they didn’t even know?
Yes, it was wrong, however they managed to accomplish it. 2million wrong? I strenuously disagree.
These frivolous cases are getting ridiculous.
When I went to a lawyer recently, to try and get some guidance on whether my settlement with the insurance company was worth pursuing legally, he and his paralegal both said that BECAUSE of frivolous lawsuits like the one here, tort reform has decreased the ability of people to sue for legitimate reasons and come out with a fair deal.
Apprently, Mr. Mitchell spends his free time watching “Barney” and listening to Air Supply.
CanvasShoes, I think when they take the order over the phone, the computer has a place to type in a name that will print out on the receipt.
Ah, thanks for the clarification jackelope. I had thought the guy just went in and ordered and then waited for his order, of course that makes sense.
As to how it might have gotten TYPED.
But what the heck??? How did they know what this guy was just from a phone call?
You mean you can’t tell within 10 seconds a person is black when they pronounce certain words differently than a caucasion or hispanic, etc? Of course not all blacks speak with a distinctive accent but plenty do.
Sounds like the perfect scam though. Some pimple faced punk types the n-word on your receipt and you split the loot later.
Ummm, no, one southern accent sounds pretty much like another to me. And one NYC accent sounds like another to me.
We west coasters (and WAY north west coasters like me, from AK) don’t really have much in the way of accents, unless you count surfer dudes.
Or, unless it’s one of those “gangsta rapper” type kids (or a wannabe) with their inane sounding verbiage. But this man, based on the article, sounded like regular working Joe.
Besides, the article never said the guy was black, and there was no picture.
Of course now that you mention it, I guess he COULD have been of a nationality that does have a distinctive accent.
But his name was David Bennet (or something like that) according to the article), very plain vanilla name.
If he’s black, with a name like that I’d imagine he’s an old fuddy duddy like me.
As to the scam thing? Yeah, I guess that could be possible. Kind of makes more sense than some random order taker just heard a “black” voice and suddenly decided to “hate” this guy.
Like CS said, it’s highly possible he could have been mexican or something, with a heavy accent. It’s not just the blacks that are hated you know. :rolleyes:
Just FTR, our favorite local independent pizza place knows our name and address from caller ID, and also knows what our regular combo is; this info is then computerized and captured on the receipt along with our CC info.
They’re hella efficient. They always tell us “it’ll be 30 - 45 minutes” and then show up in 20.
And they never ever put insults of any kind on the receipts.
I dunno, here. That cite is awfully skimpy with the facts.
I used to think the McDonalds’ Coffee Lawsuit was a great example of a frivolous lawsuit… until I found out ALL the facts. Then it became a great example of corporate idiocy combined with the best spin doctoring money could buy. Oh, that, and a fair number of columnists who thought it sounded like a neat cite for attacks on frivolous lawsuits.
This sounds frivolous. It also sounds pretty easy to fake. I’m gonna wait until I have the facts to pass judgment.
Sounds sensible to me, Wang-Ka; but quick! Get out of the middle of the road and over to the side here, or you’ll be trampled in the rush to judgment. 
Seriously, as one who reads a LOT of pretrial testimony in litigation, I can tell you that, while there certainly are frivolous lawsuits, they’re not nearly as common as the tort reform pushers would have you believe. It’s a complicated subject, though, and I’ve got more transcript proofreading to get back to, so I’ll leave it at that.
Doesn’t defamation of character have to have some actual consequences? I mean, wouldn’t it have to affect one’s reputation in the community or something? Nobody saw this thing but the customer and his wife. And wouldn’t something that qualified for defamation of character need to say something about his character or behavior or something like that? Obviously, IANAL, but I don’t understand this. I could see asking for compensation for that kind of insult, but I don’t see how the defamation charge applies.
David Benson.
Just for fun, let’s put see if we can spot the “Benson” deliberately hidden amongst a group of plain-vanilla fuddy-duddies. 
And, oh, yeah: A million bucks? U.S.? I wish I had that much character to defame. (I have outrage to spare, though, thanks.)
Yeah, I guess what outraged me wasn’t the frivilous-ness (word?) of the lawsuit. It was the humangous (okay, not a word, but I like it anyway!) pile of cash that’s being demanded over it! 2 million for a (probably) racial slur? Seems a bit much, no?
My gut feeling about this thing (based on all the litigation I’ve observed over the years but no percipient knowledge) is that the two million bucks is an attention-getter, and that the plaintiff (if he has a sensible lawyer) is gunning for an out-of-court settlement that will be substantially smaller. This smells to me like what’s called a nuisance suit, where the validity of the claims is dubious at best, but it would cost the defendant more to jump through all the pretrial hoops and actually try the case than to pay off the plaintiff with a relative pittance. Especially if the company’s insurance company will pick up the tab.
thirdwarning, I agree with you, but smart lawyers will always throw every possible claim – even if only vaguely plausible – into the initial complaint, just to cover all the bases. A lawyer who left out a potentially valid ground for suit might find him/herself seeing a case dismissed because the wrong cause of action had been pled, with a note in the judgment of dismissal that the omitted ground would have been the proper one.
ArrrMatey, the word you want is frivolity.