Want to read a story that’ll make your blood boil? A story that will show you how our justice system has begun to decline so that frivolous lawsuits win the day — even if they’re punishing two teenage girls for trying to be nice to a neighbor?
You DO? Great, then read this:
DURANGO, Colorado (Reuters) – A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbour 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 neighbour 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.
AWWW! Getting unsolicited cookies will do that to you ALL the time.
Just think if it had been an old lady helped across the street by two Boy Scouts. Those boys would HANG in the morning…
But we digress from this touching story of our justice system awarding people who can squeeze money out of good deeds and teaching kids a lesson about the consequences of trying to be nice to people who aren’t blood relatives:
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 neighbours 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.
YOU SEE? If they had only gone to the dance, done some cussing, gotten drunk, done some weed and had sex, NONE of this would have happened (or at least this is THE MESSAGE society is SENDING THEM). MORE:
It reported that six neighbours wrote letters entered as evidence in the case thanking the girls for the cookies.
But Young said she was frightened because the two had knocked on her door at about 10:30 p.m. and run off after leaving the cookies.
She went to a hospital emergency room the next day, fearing that she had suffered a heart attack, court records said.
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.
What a nice, wise judge. (Didn’t he also preside over the O.J. case? Oh. I could swear it’s the same guy….)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.