Posted on 01/18/2007 5:09:34 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Lawyers for the family of a woman who died after drinking nearly two gallons of water in an on-air radio contest said Thursday they will file a wrongful death lawsuit to make an example out of the station and attempt to curb the recklessness of shock jock radio.
"We believe we can get a judgment that people across the country will have to pay attention to," said Roger Dreyer, a personal injury lawyer who accused radio station KDND-FM of knowing of the dangers of the water-drinking contest but continuing anyway.
He charged that the contest that preceded the death of 28-year-old Jennifer Lea Strange, a mother of three from the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova, was nothing more than a ratings stunt designed to boost profits.
"Outrageousness at any cost has become the industry standard - the trashier and more humiliating the better," Dreyer said. "It's time to stop the recklessness."
Dreyer said the lawsuit would likely be filed within days, after a private memorial service for Strange this weekend, and following a determination by lawyers about which station employees - and perhaps which companies in addition to the station - should be named in the suit.
He would not specify how much in damages the suit would seek.
Charles Sipkins, spokesman for KDND's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, declined to comment on Dreyer's remarks since a lawsuit has not yet been filed.
Thursday's announcement followed revelations Wednesday that the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department had launched a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding Strange's death.
Authorities decided to pursue the investigation after listening to a tape of the Jan. 12 "Morning Rave" show that was obtained by The Sacramento Bee. On the tape, disc jockeys can be heard joking about the possible dangers of consuming too much water. They even alluded to a Chico State University student who died during a hazing stunt in 2005 after drinking large amounts of water.
At one point a listener called in to warn the DJs that the stunt could be fatal.
"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of them responded.
Another DJ laughed: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."
The object of the contest was to see how much water contestants could drink without going to the bathroom. The top prize was a Nintendo Wii gaming console. The DJs called the contest "Hold your Wee for a Wii."
Several hours into the program, Strange was interviewed and complained that her head hurt.
"They keep telling me that it's the water. That it will tell my head to hurt and then it will make me puke," she said.
"This is what it feels like when you're drowning," responded one of the DJs. "There's a lot of water inside you."
Eventually, Strange gave up and accepted the second-place prize, tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert.
Dreyer, senior partner of the Sacramento law firm Dreyer, Babich, Buccola & Callaham, said he had requested a copy of the release DJs spoke of on the radio but had not yet received it from Entercom.
Sipkins declined to comment on the status of that request.
KDND on Tuesday fired 10 employees connected to the contest, including the three "Morning Rave" disc jockeys. The company also took the show off the air.
Dreyer said the family is devastated by the loss of Strange, whose children are ages 11 months, 3 years and 11 years old.
"They're without their mother," Dreyer said. "One of their motivations in coming to me is they don't want to see this happen again."
Answer honestly. Did you know that drinking too much water could kill you before this? I doubt she did either.
If whatever release she signed didn't include to possibility of sudden death, (which I doubt the idiot DJs or the program manager had a clue of) their ass is grass. And way would a radio station put people's life at risk if they had a clue they could possibly cause multiple deaths? They did not know what they were doing. They put multiple people at risk. Only this one woman died. It could have been more.
Because of conservatives, our political culture has created a permanent underclass in our society and this underclass is so desperate that they will undertake any risk to help their children better themselves. Shame on our society for forcing this poor women to risk her life to provide for her children because her children's peers made her children feel like second class citizens because they didn't have a Wii .
Most folks don't know the seriousness of the matter and have no idea what they're doing. The radio station created an event that was an attractive nusiance and had the legal duty to find out and know and then to inform the contestants of all the hazards and then to protect them from the serious injury and harm their event was likely to cause. See #60.
The DJs announced that they didn't give a shit, so their ass should be mulch.
I'm particularly reminded of my senior year in college: a friend and I dropped a fake paternity suit on another buddy (it's a long story). We did a good job, too, with authentic looking legal documents through the assistance of law students that lived in the same dorm.
Fortunately, no one committed suicide, or beat the crap out of the perpetrators. Instead, the "victim" played out his role the next day, seeking "advice" from our advisors in the ROTC department.
It still comes up at our reunions, even 30 years later.
In today's environment, who knows what could have happened?
That shows "For Water: LD50 Oral Rat: >90 ml/Kg."
So for a 130lb rat, I think that would be about 1.401969192 gallons.
Is there any indication if the winner had eaten anything? I was out in the sun a few months back and started drinking a lot of water. I started too feel woozy and light headed. At first, I thought it wasn't enough water. A friend noticed and got me some food. Suddenly I realized I needed salt. I was handed a can of chips. I still felt weird after that, but not as bad as I had.
Truthfully, I really didn't know this. However, I survived drinking at least two gallons of Konigsbacher Pils in a three hour period. I was hungover the next day, but it was damn fine beer.
There was another night (12/30/79, to be exact), where I lost count after 12 shots of Jagermeister (and continued on for a few more hours) and several litres of Holsten Pils, and I survived that.
Accordingly, I would not have been too concerned about the possible effects of water intoxication. Lucky me (for not being able to participate in this contest)!
2 very liberal concepts.
Care to guess when the nuisance doctrine was embellished in the US and who appointed the judges which turned long standing common law on its head?
Had to do this once before. Very painful to hold. The thought of 2 gallons seems as if it should be impossible.
Maybe they'll settle, but only if they lose a motion for summary judgment based on the release. Parties to a contract can waive their right to sue if the other is negligent, but the release must be specific as to that point. I haven't seen anything that suggests the station targeted the decedent more for her own demise than any other contestant, and I'm not sure even that would get the station past summary judgment.
How about telling me? I'd enjoy hearing your account.
People called in to say that it may cause death. The DJ was callous and said it didn't matter.
And the release form most likely said the same thing, and the decedent, by signing the form, said she knew that it may cause death and that it didn't matter to her.
You're right. Thanks.
LD50=(90g/(3785g/gal))(kg/2.2 lb)(130 lb) =1.4 gal
At some point, the 11 year old is going to suffer greatly -- far more than the other children, since he will realize that his mother died trying to win him a cool toy.
The mother made a stupid choice, but she would never have attempted the stunt unless the radio station prompted her to try.
It's a tragedy all around. Her children will pay the price, no matter how much money they receive from the radio station.
"2 very liberal concepts."
Ridiculous!
"Care to guess when the nuisance doctrine was embellished in the US and who appointed the judges which turned long standing common law on its head?"
The nuisance doctrine comes from old English common law and was observed in the US before the Revolution. Each State recognizes and follows it, as does the US since the Signing of the Constitution.
In this case I used the term nuisance, because it applies to the station's offer of the deadly contest in the community of listeners. I used the term attractive, because it applies to it's attractiveness. It was in an attractive invitation with a hidden risk of death. It would only be inappropriate to use it if the contestants weren't enjoying their lives.
The duty to inform is Biblical, so is the concept of nuisance. They are both contained in the 2nd of the 2 great commandments. Even under caveat emptor, risk could not be concealed, and common law contained the concept of negligent action. The station can not say that there was no way no know ahead of time, because all they had to do was call a doc to get some info.
"who appointed the judges which turned long standing common law on its head?"
I don't know. The king?
NASCAR provisions for it's sanctioned events and doesn't promote illegal activities like teens racing on the streets. The woman here didn't just get an idea from the station. The station sanctioned an event to promote itself for finacial gain. The DJs were also promoting their "reputations".
No. It was a contest. Contestants are assumed to be responsible enough not to commit suicide for a stupid contest on the radio. Also, a medical examination after the contest is pointless without having conducted a medical exam of all contestants prior to starting the contest period. Without the pre-exam, there is no data to compare against in a post-exam, making a post-exam pretty pointless in and of itself.
However, here are the questions you should ask: Should the DJs have submitted their idea to the station management BEFORE going ahead with the contest? If the station management was unaware of the nature of the contest, does that make the station culpable in the death? If the young woman felt ill, why was she willing to ignore a critical bodily function just to win a stupid electronic toy? Was the young woman ALWAYS a moron, or were their other aspects in her life that contributed to her being a moron (such as chronic drug use, or an underlying medical condition she may or may not have known about)?
Despite how harsh I might sound, I'm sorry that she is dead. However,at the very most, the DJs themselves might be culpable in her death from the perspective that they didn't have station authority (if, indeed, they didn't) to stage that particular "contest".
Still, I believe that the individual has the responsibility to attend to their own safety first over the desire to win the latest electronic gadget. "Self-preservation is supposed to be a primary driving force in humans; hers was, apparently, missing or latent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.