Posted on 10/30/2009 12:25:49 AM PDT by raccoonradio
A Sacramento jury set an eye-popping standard Thursday on the cost of radio station contests that kill and the resulting loss of a mother's love and a wife's companionship.
The tab for Entercom Sacramento LLC came to $16,577,118 in the water-intoxication death of Jennifer Lea Strange in a contest put on by radio station KDND "The End" (107.9 FM).
Such was the award rendered by a Sacramento Superior Court jury of seven men and five women in the trial to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Strange's survivors. The 28-year-old woman died Jan. 12, 2007, after she participated in KDND's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest.
"I think the message of the verdict is these stations need to be more cognizant of what they're doing and they need to take the time to do the research to make sure no one's harmed," juror La Teshia Paggett said in an interview after the panel concluded nine days of deliberations with Thursday's eight-figure award.
Juror Tammy Elliott, echoing the closing arguments of plaintiffs' lawyers, said the evidence against the Sacramento subsidiary of the Philadelphia-based Entercom Communications Corp. was "overwhelming" in the trial that began Sept. 8 and featured testimony from 41 witnesses.
Entercom Sacramento, she said, failed to follow the parent company's guidelines in its contest promising the hard-to-get video game for the participant who drank the most water without urinating or vomiting.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Entercom Happens.™
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