Posted on 03/21/2007 11:33:30 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
The attorney for a flight attendant whose lawsuit accuses the wife of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen of assault wants to photograph the inside of the plane where the incident occurred.
The lawsuit, filed in September, accuses Victoria Osteen of pushing Sharon Brown, a Continental Airlines flight attendant, and elbowing her in the chest.
Brown says the confrontation occurred as Osteen approached the cockpit and demanded to speak with someone in charge.
Victoria Osteen denies the allegations, said her attorney, Rusty Hardin. "Victoria never assaulted her or raised her voice," said Hardin, who previously has called the lawsuit a "ridiculous" attempt to get money from a woman whose husband is the pastor of Houston's largest church.
Brown's attorney, Reginald McKamie Sr., wants to photograph the plane's interior to understand the facts of the incident, according to the motion he filed recently. He said the photos would help jurors understand what other passengers saw during the incident.
State District Judge Patricia Hancock is scheduled Friday to consider the request, which Hardin said he does not oppose.
The Osteens were on board Continental Airlines Flight 1602 at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport, bound for Vail, Colo., on Dec. 19, 2005.
Things are apparently progressing — slowly — in the lawsuit against Victoria Osteen filed in September: The Chronicle is reporting that the attorney for a flight attendant accusing Osteen, the wife of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, of assault wants to have the interior of the airplane where the incident occurred photographed.
This all goes back to Dec. 19, 2005, when Osteen reportedly went ballistic about some liquid that had been spilled on her first-class seat on a Continental flight bound for Vail; passengers on the flight said Osteen ran up the aisle and began banging on the door of the cockpit and that several flight attendants had to restrain her. Eventually, the Osteen clan was thrown off the plane. Though Osteen denied the whole thing (despite reports from fellow passengers and an FBI investigation that said it did, indeed, happen), one of the flight attendants — Sharon Brown, who claims Osteen pushed her and elbowed her in the left breast — filed suit against Osteen. Brown is seeking compensation for physical and mental injury she says she sustained during the encounter.
So a state district judge is set to consider a request from Brown's lawyer, Reginald McKamie Sr., to photograph the interior of the plane to better understand the facts of the incident. Osteen's attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he doesn't oppose that, but he still maintains (as he's paid the big bucks to do) that Osteen never did anything wrong. "Victoria never assaulted [Brown] or raised her voice," he said, adding that he thinks the suit is just an attempt to get money from Lakewood Church.
Poked in the left boob? That oughta be worth a couple of hundred grand, I guess.
I'm going to withhold judgement on this one, but you'd think being a flight attendant, she would be innoculated to poking, prodding, shouting, pushing, and just non-sexual molestation in general.
But if someone pushed you around while you were doing your job would you have the right of legal recourse? (I'd probably just punch their lights out at that time but that's the way I am) ;0 )
Depends on the job, but in this case, if the incident occurred as the flight attendant says, Victoria Osteen should have been removed from the plane at the next stop, whether it was her final destination or not, refunded her money for the trip, and then steps taken to ban her from the airline altogether.
I remember the incident when it happened. I think it's clear who waers the pants in the Osteen family (not Joel). I think they deserve all the bad press they are getting from this, and I'm glad the clan was kicked off the plane, but "assault" is BS.
Easy livin', since I've got my hand in your church's coffer. Whew
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It depends how hard she did it. That's kind of like being kicked you know where if she did it hard enough.
Mental illness?????
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