Thursday, January 20, 2011

Fountain Lady Has Lawyer, But Absolutely No Case

This video is hilarious:



This video is sad: "Fountain Lady" Ponders Lawsuit

The original video posted on YouTube did not identify the woman, and the resolution of the tape is insufficient to identify the woman either. The only reason the woman was identified was because she identified herself as the bumbling texter, gave interviews to newspapers and went on television.

So did the video cause her humiliation? Or did she?

She also claims no one came to her aid. As is apparent in the video, not many people saw her. Only one person in the video can be seen looking directly at the incident... and he approaches the woman to ask if she's alright.

The woman got up and out of the fountain swiftly. She didn't appear injured, just embarrassed. Was this something mall security really had to respond to? This seems like something that's not part of their job description.

But now of course, she's planning to sue.

Given the video evidence, she'd fail in court. The threatened lawsuit is simply a ploy to extract a settlement from a mall owner who probably won't want to spend the money to lawyer up. The woman's lawyer is betting they'll settle for a sum less than potential lawyer fees and court costs. Meanwhile, the woman's lawyer will get a percentage of the settlement and some free publicity for his practice.

The irony is, the woman could have spun this into considerably more money by NOT suing. She could have taken advantage of her comic pratfall, spinning it into ads for cell phone unlimited texting plans or one of those, "Wanna Get Away?" Southwest Airlines commercials. I mean, that crying Britney Spears guy made a few bucks, any YouTube viral star should be able to.

Now she's just another sad example of America's love affair with litigation.

1 comment:

Hot Mama said...

Very astute!

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