Favorite Headline of the Week
Via Overlawyered, one of my absolute favorite blogs, comes my favorite headline of the week, courtesy of KCRA in California:
Paraplegic Activist Leaps From Wheelchair, Runs From Police
That's classic. Apparently, the person involved had defrauded numerous organizations with spurious ADA complaints under California's ridiculous sue-anyone-with-higher-net-worth-than-yours laws.
Police said Laura Lee Medley, who repeatedly filed claims and lawsuits
for noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, was a con
artist.A San Bernardino County spokesman, David Wert, said
Medley had complained to police earlier that she was having medical
problems so she was taken to a hospital for treatment.Wert said, "That's where the great miracle occurred."
Officers
said Medley, 35, leaped from her wheelchair and ran for freedom after
being placed under arrest by Las Vegas police. The barefoot woman was
caught after a brief pursuit.According to authorities in
Southern California, Medley was never disabled but used her supposed
condition to file many medical claims and lawsuits. Her questionable
claims led to the arrest in Las Vegas.
The vast majority of my employees and many of my customers are over 60, so we try extra-hard to accommodate people with all kinds of disabilities. That is why this type of fraud really burns me up. Not once but twice we have killed incipient lawsuits when we have had customers who were claiming severe physical disabilities observed playing football or unloading a truck. I have had one person I was interviewing for a job tell me that I had to hire him since he was disabled, because if I didn't choose him I would be discriminating against the handicapped (we chose a different candidate).
Update: More Unruh act silliness:
A Los Angeles psychologist who was denied a tote bag during a Mother's
Day giveaway at an Angel game is suing the baseball team, alleging sex
and age discrimination.Michael Cohn's class-action claim in Orange County Superior Court
alleges that thousands of males and fans under 18 were "treated
unequally" at a "Family Sunday" promotion last May and are entitled to
$4,000 each in damages.
Kevin:
Then there are people like one of my students. He is completely wheelchair-bound, but doesn't even have a handicapped parked permit for this state (he came from a different state). He tried once, but didn't have the right paperwork, and just never got around to trying again. So he fights along with everyone else for parking spaces, and just wheels in from however far away he has parked, through snow, muck, up-down hills, curbs, traffic, etc.
May 15, 2006, 7:36 pmMaurice:
Man, I thought that was pretty funny too. People like that mess it up for everybody.
May 16, 2006, 7:56 am