Friday, February 26, 2010

I'll say it as nicely as I am able...

Remember when that crazy man flew an airplane into the IRS building last week?

Yeah: crazy.

No matter what anyone thinks of the IRS, that was a singularly horrible thing to do, and, sadly, one man in the building was killed along with the deranged pilot.

Now the wife of the deceased IRS employee is suing the wife of the dead lunatic pilot. In the lawsuit, widow Valerie Hunter asserts:

“[Sheryl Stack] was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash,” the suit says. “[She] owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others..."



Let's review: the guy was crazy and could have done anything (oh, say, shot up a Luby's, had a field day from a certain bell tower in Austin, marched nude up the Capitol steps-- the possibilities were endless), and his unfortunate wife is accused of being in part responsible for his actions because she removed herself and her child from his presence? Living with the man recently could not have been a picnic, but the poor woman may have thought the worst was over when she finally got away from him. My heart goes out to her, as it looks like there's no end in sight for the bullcorn.

Seriously - I know Mrs. Hunter is grieving, but to lash out at the other widow from the sad affair is sheer dementia con carne. I could understand if she sued the IRS for being the author of maddening degrees of asshattery, but this is beyond the pale. The nicest way I can say it is that Mrs. Hunter must be an absolute intercoursing c-word. Her and the lawyer she rode in on.

I hope they are duly shamed in court, as they should be.

10 comments:

Roscoe said...

Not that Florida's process is any better, but we had an experience with the Texas legal system that can only be described as "bizarre". It wouldn't surprise me if the courts there allowed the widow's suit to move forward.

Honestly, I don't think our Harvard/SMU grad lawyer was enough of a freak to get the job done in the courts out there.

Jon said...

Some parts of Texas are hellholes of tort abuse, and I'm thinking the liberal haven of Austin is one of those places.

In a perfect world, the judge would tell the plaintiff, and their attorney, to get out of the courtroom, or they would be drawn and quartered.

phlegmfatale said...

Roscoe - I'll agree that it's a whole 'nother world in Texas' legal system.

Jon - I agree. I've been amazed by leaving the big city and seeing the real Good Ole Boy network and its insane machinations out here in Elsewhere. As Roscoe said, it's bizarre, to say the least.

phlegmfatale said...

Oh, and IN an perfect world, the widow of the pilot would be suing the IRS for driving him to such extremes.

BobG said...

I saw that the other day, and found it very distasteful. The crazy guy's widow is just as much a victim as the other woman, and does not deserve a lawsuit.

Jon said...

I guess the defendant's attorney can sue the plaintiff for her failure to warn the public of the possibility her husband's job can drive people to violence. I'm sure there are volumes of criminal cases to support this claim.

Wouldn't any of these suits be strange to observe? Two wives fighting over whether their husbands were responsible for their own activities? This would be fodder for a melodrama. Of course there would have to be two screen plays to promote the opposite sides. Depending on the side, George Clooney could play whoever is supposed to be good and the bad apple could be played by Joe Pesci. In the end, the grieving widows would fall in love with their attorneys.

TOTWTYTR said...

I wonder what they expect to get if they win? Wasn't Stack broke because of his debt to the IRS?

Crazy.

Old NFO said...

YGTBSM... sigh...

Stretch said...

No, no. The grieving widows fall in love with each other! SHEESH, you'll never sell that screenplay unless you get with the program.

Kristophr said...

Pointless lawsuit.

You could sue the asshat's estate ... that's about it.

What we have here is a lawyer who is willing to take money to sue anything that moves ... said lawyer is not working on spec, as he knows he has no chance of winning.