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Woman sues N.J. Staples after being attacked by customer over mask comment
Pennlive ^ | 14 August A.D. 2021 | Anthony Attrino

Posted on 08/14/2021 8:29:14 AM PDT by lightman

A Teaneck woman who was attacked and suffered a broken bone in her leg in Staples last summer after asking a fellow customer to put on a mask has filed a lawsuit against the business.

Margot Kagan, 55, says in court papers a lack of supervision and security left her “boxed in” and vulnerable to the woman who allegedly attacked her near the fax machines at the Hackensack store.

There was “no reasonable way to alight from a foreseeable event,” states the suit, filed last week in Superior Court of Bergen County.

“(The) foreseeable event was a fellow patron who berated and ultimately attacked (Kagan),” the suit states.

The incident occurred July 29 as the mother of two faxed paperwork from the store’s machines, Kagan told NJ Advance Media after the attack.

In an interview from her hospital bed last year, Kagan said she’d recently had a liver transplant and was worried about contracting the coronavirus.

“I said, ‘you’re endangering everyone by not wearing your mask’ and I put my head down and went back to faxing at the machine,” Kagan said days after the event.

Security video from a store camera shows the suspect walk around a plastic divider and confront Kagan.

“Next thing I know, she’s two feet away from me, screaming at me,” Kagan said. “I really didn’t understand what she was saying. I lifted my cane to keep her away from me.”

Video appears to show the suspect grabbing the frail woman and throwing her to the floor. “My knee broke while I was falling. I later learned it was my tibia,” Kagan said.

Police arrested Terri Thomas, 25, of Hackensack, and charged her with aggravated assault. The criminal case is pending in Superior Court, public records show. But Kagan has sued only the store, not Thomas.

The lawsuit alleges Staples was negligent in not providing security at the Hackensack store, which court papers describe as “a high crime area.” Staples did not immediately respond Friday morning to a request for comment on the lawsuit.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: covid1984; karen; mask; myob; newjersey; staples
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To: af_vet_1981
Not disagreeing with you, though all bets were off when the frail old lady jabbed her cane at her.

No DA would prosecute this, her lawyer would scream self defense.

Thanks for your service. Though Army, I was on Hahn and Spangdahlem AB's during my tour in Germany, from 77-81...loved it.

41 posted on 08/14/2021 9:20:37 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: lowbridge

There it is.


42 posted on 08/14/2021 9:25:05 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: lightman

Poke a poke a ghettopopotamus with a stick you will be attacked. It’s not about right or wrong, it’s just the way it is.


43 posted on 08/14/2021 9:28:46 AM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: lightman
The woman is 55 years old and frail?! And she's recovering from very serious surgery. When I first read the story I imagined she was 85. If she took the Vax Of Death she is not long for this world.
44 posted on 08/14/2021 9:34:41 AM PDT by cpt_dave
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To: SamAdams76

“This woman learned a hard lesson.”

You’re right, she learned several lessons. Hopefully one of them is that what white people can do to other white people with little repercussion is not the same as white people can do to black people without expecting repercussion. There are generally two completely different standards of conduct. The best thing to do is not engage unless you have no choice. “Disrespecting” them and then trying to poke them with a cane is probably not going to turn out good.


45 posted on 08/14/2021 9:48:03 AM PDT by suthener ( )
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To: lightman
Karen got kracked.

46 posted on 08/14/2021 9:51:02 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ("Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration." — Thomas Edison)
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To: Night Hides Not
... all bets were off when the frail old lady jabbed her cane at her.

A civil society does not physically abuse the old or the young.

Seriously, who would countenance abuse of the young or old, or most ladies for that matter ?

Thanks for your service. Though Army, I was on Hahn and Spangdahlem AB's during my tour in Germany, from 77-81...loved it.

Great years to be stationed in Europe; most of the bases I knew are gone, so sad.
47 posted on 08/14/2021 9:56:57 AM PDT by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began)
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To: frogjerk

“If you are concerned for your health stay home.”

EXACTLY!!


48 posted on 08/14/2021 9:57:35 AM PDT by Polyxene (Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.)
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To: af_vet_1981

If the “frail’ woman doesn’t say anything to the young woman none of this happens. The young woman was wearing a mask, though not properly, and was more than six feet away and moving away from her. Did the young woman over react? Yes most definitely, but only after being poked numerous times with the woman’s cane. She was arrested and charged with assault. But there are times when discretion is the better part of valor. This woman was in no danger from the young woman. If she was this fearful for her health then she should have stayed home and had someone else do the fax for her or put the document in an envelope and send it.

My wife, who has COPD and struggles with the masks, was cornered in a grocery store last winter by two women because she had moved to a corner of the store to pull her mask down so she could breathe. She was wearing her oxygen. She was very shaken when I found her and just wanted to leave. We finished our shopping together. If I had been with her when she was verbally assaulted someone would have been eating their mask. Luckily for these two Karens I was a couple of aisle over when it happened.

People need to learn to MYOB. If not then be prepared to deal with the consequences.


49 posted on 08/14/2021 10:05:55 AM PDT by redangus
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To: lightman

Lawyers approached the woman and said the money is in suing Staples, not the person who injured her.


50 posted on 08/14/2021 10:12:16 AM PDT by libh8er
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To: lee martell

Yes, the older woman was brutally attacked. People here want to blame the victim but IIRC she had cancer and had a compromised immune system.

I see people laughing and angry at the victim but no criticism of the assaulter with poor impulse control who violently attacks an elderly person and breaks her leg.


51 posted on 08/14/2021 10:12:30 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: lightman

I remember watching a clip of this incident and wishing the two jackasses had beaten each other to death.


52 posted on 08/14/2021 10:14:10 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("And once in a night I dreamed you were there; I canceled my flight from going nowhere.")
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To: qaz123

You think knocking down a person who simply asks you to wear a mask is okay? Especially an obviously frail older woman? What kind of mindset is that? Firstly, it’s immoral; it’s also criminal, since self-defense was not a factor.

I don’t think the store bears any responsibility, so the victim is wrong on that point. She should’ve stayed home in the vulnerable condition she’s in, but it’s possible she doesn’t have anyone to help her with what she was trying to get done.


53 posted on 08/14/2021 10:18:56 AM PDT by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: lightman

This post and its replies are a valuable source for anyone compiling a compendium of the shitheels who have infested Free Republic over the years.


54 posted on 08/14/2021 10:24:49 AM PDT by Gigantor (Either the United States respects its Constitution, or there is no need for a United States.)
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To: ladyjane

55 is elderly to you? How old are you?


55 posted on 08/14/2021 10:27:41 AM PDT by ronniesgal (so I wonder what his FR handle is???? )
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To: af_vet_1981

Not sad, they were expensive and unnecessary.


56 posted on 08/14/2021 10:31:31 AM PDT by webheart (I thought I was helping by getting vaccinated but they say I didn’t help at all. )
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To: ladyjane

The Karen was an idiot. I don’t condone violence and I have made it through 64 years on earth without getting in a single fight. I keep my mouth shut and my mind and eyes open. The Karen may or may not deserve what she got but she got it because she didn’t keep her mouth shut. It is hard not to laugh. Sorry.

The black woman obviously overreacted. I criticize her behavior. She should do time for assault. There was a cultural component to her reaction that people should understand before interacting. I am not judging any other cultures. I certainly don’t go around telling people to put masks on. It is hard not to laugh. Sorry.

The store had no way to control any aspect of the interaction. They would have had to be clairvoyant as far back as when they built the store to have prevented anything like that.

The fault is actually with Fauci who has been the point man on COVID since the very beginning way back when Obama was president. He helped create the virus and has been pushed out in front of the world as the messianic covid czar. He is still talking and nobody has yet shut him up. Even Trump didn’t shut him up and he could have. If Donald Trump made one mistake it was by not firing Fauci the first time he contradicted himself.


57 posted on 08/14/2021 10:47:08 AM PDT by webheart (I thought I was helping by getting vaccinated but they say I didn’t help at all. )
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To: af_vet_1981
Perhaps. But when you decide to be confrontational towards strangers for no good reason, you assume the risk and must accept the consequences.

Mind your own business. Many women never learned that lesson because they never got a smash in the face in the schoolyard.

58 posted on 08/14/2021 10:55:03 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (Give me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer)
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To: Gigantor
This post and its replies are a valuable source for anyone compiling a compendium of the shitheels who have infested Free Republic over the years.

Usually it's Saturday night when they vent about how horrible American women are. I have to wonder what kind of relationship they had with their mother.

59 posted on 08/14/2021 11:09:33 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: lightman

I would have done the same damn thing if she shoved that cane in my face.
The old lady instigated and escalated this entire interaction.


60 posted on 08/14/2021 11:23:47 AM PDT by JerseyDvl (During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.)
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