Lawsuit of the Day: Pull My Finger -- OW, You Schmuck!

It’s been kind of a slow week, what with the upcoming Labor Day holiday and all. So today’s Lawsuit of the Day — by the way, these “of the Day” features aren’t exactly daily, just whenever we feel like it — isn’t that ridiculous.
Here it is (via the New York Law Journal):

A medical student who injured his pinky horsing around in the snow and then sued a state hospital for malpractice has lost his case in the Court of Claims.

Judge S. Michael Nadel said David Kern could not establish a prima facie case of malpractice, in part because his own expert — a neurologist on the faculty of SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, where the claimant was studying — gave the court next to nothing to work with.

The weakness of plaintiff’s expert testimony was the biggest problem with the case. But this didn’t exactly help matters:

Mr. Kern admitted that he had taken part in a SUNY talent show just weeks after the injury–a videotape introduced by the defendant showed him playing the piano and singing a rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” at the show…

“Free Bird”? It’s all over. That’s a pretty challenging song. Remember when Bo Bice sang it on “American Idol”?
(Any Beverly Hills 90210 fans out there? This reminds us of the time that Brenda (Shannen Doherty) got into a car accident with the lady who claimed she got a serious case of whiplash. Brenda goes over to the lady’s house to apologize, and sees the lady aerobicizing in her living room — sans neck brace!!! That episode was classic…)
Hey look, don’t get us wrong; the main problem here was with plaintiff’s expert testimony. We’re not belittling all lawsuits over injured pinky fingers. After all, we’d be screwed without ours; we love the semicolon!
And don’t forget Dr. Evil. If you injured his pinky finger, the compensatory damages could amount to… 1 MILLION DOLLARS!!!
Claim Over Med Student’s Hurt Pinky Denied [New York Law Journal]

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