Posted on 02/05/2005 12:26:24 PM PST by beyond the sea
DURANGO, Colo. (Reuters) - A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbor said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts.
The pair were ordered to pay $871.70 plus $39 in court costs after neighbor Wanita Renea Young, 49, filed a lawsuit complaining that the unsolicited cookies, left at her house after the girls knocked on her door, had triggered an anxiety attack that sent her to the hospital the next day.
Taylor Ostergaard, then 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitte, 18, paid the judgment on Thursday after a small claims court ruling by La Plata County Court Judge Doug Walker, a court clerk said on Friday.
The girls baked cookies as a surprise for several of their rural Colorado neighbors on July 31 and dropped off small batches on their porches, accompanied by red or pink paper hearts and the message: "Have a great night."
The Denver Post newspaper reported on Friday that the girls had decided to stay home and bake the cookies rather than go to a dance where there might be cursing and drinking.
It reported that six neighbors wrote letters entered as evidence in the case thanking the girls for the cookies.
But Young said she was frightened because the two had knocked on her door at about 10:30 p.m. and run off after leaving the cookies.
She went to a hospital emergency room the next day, fearing that she had suffered a heart attack, court records said.
The judge awarded Young her medical costs, but did not award punitive damages. He said he did not think the girls had acted maliciously but that 10:30 was fairly late at night for them to be out.
So the woman is a flake and her husband is a terrorist? Sounds like a really functional family unit? I don't even want to think about how the 18 year old daughter is wired?
You know, if the kids had tied the cookies to a rock and thrown them through her window, I might be able to sympathize with the plaintif. But as a treat simply left there with a note, I think the judge should have ordered an investigation by the local police and then a psychiatric evaluation for the plaitif.
Another article said the woman though it was burglars or some other neighbors she had tangled with before who was outside her door.
I can really understand why this woman would have neighbors who wished to do her harm.
Unbelievable! Hopefully the cranky old lady gets the "real deal" very soon.
Wanita is nuts, and the judge isn't any better. I'd recommend sending them each huge boxes of fruitcakes,(because that's what they are) but I'd probably get sued.
LOL. I hear you.
She thought it was burglars knocking on her door? WTF??
Don't make sense to me either but then neither does suing someone for leaving you cookies.....
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