If you thought children were immune to weird lawsuits, you would be wrong. A New York woman proved that both kiddies and kin aren’t off limits when she sued her 8-year-old nephew for $127,000 after she said he injured her during a hug. It only took a six member jury 20 minutes to rule that the lawsuit was ridiculous and the boy wasn’t liable for the injury. But what would possess a woman to sue her nephew over a little “exuberant” affection in the first place?
Apparently Jennifer Connell, 54, decided to sue her nephew Sean Tarala, 12, after the heartfelt hug he gave her during his eighth birthday party four years ago caused her to fall and break her wrist, according to the Connecticut Post. The lawsuit had hoped to prove that “the injuries, losses and harms to the plaintiff were caused by the negligence and carelessness of the minor defendant in that a reasonable eight year old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff.”
Connell testified that the boy was riding a new two-wheeler that he had received for his birthday when he saw Connell. That’s when she says the 50-pound boy dropped the bike on the ground and pounced on her. Connell described the event saying,
All of a sudden he was there in the air, I had to catch him, and we tumbled onto the ground. I remember him shouting, ‘Auntie Jen I love you,’ and there he was flying at me.
She told the jury that she was hurt by the fall, but didn’t complain because she didn’t want to “upset him on his birthday.” It appears that she wasn’t still worried about upsetting him four years later when she decided to file the civil suit against him alleging that the broken wrist created too heavy of a burden on her childless single existence. Connell said,
I live in Manhattan in a third-floor walkup so it has been very difficult. And we all know how crowded it is in Manhattan.
But that was nothing compared to the effect it had on her social life. Connell added,
I was at a party recently, and it was difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvres plate.”
Oh the horror! I couldn’t possible imagine trying to sip a martini and hold a plate of escargot simultaneously with such a life-altering injury.