Source: http://nwlawyer.wsba.org/nwlawyer/october_2014?pg=45&lm=1516237579000
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 01:43:57+00:00

Document:
With October come thoughts of changing leaves, cooler, maybe even frosty nights, and the end-of-the-month celebration of all things spooky, scary, and sometimes imply sophomoric. This month’s “Top Ten” is a quick look at some cases ( provided by the World Wide Web) that will give you chills, or possibly just leave you scratching your head.
1. Rice v. Utah Department of Corrections (2001). A Utah prisoner named Robert Rice filed for extraordinary relief, claiming the prison acted in violation of his right to practice his religion by failing to provide a “vampire” diet.
2. Durmon v. Billings (2004). In Louisiana, a customer who visited a haunted corn maze sued the owner and owner’s insurer after she fell and broke her leg when an actor with a chainsaw approached her.
3. Grant v. Grant (2012). A potential criminal and tort case from Pennsylvania where, at a family Halloween bonfire, Janet Grant spotted a skunk and told her son Thomas to fetch a shotgun and shoot it. When he returned, Janet Grant shined a flashlight on the animal while her son shot it. It was only then that they discovered that little Tommie had just shot his eight-year-old cousin in her black-and-white Halloween costume. Fortunately, his cousin survived with only a wound to her shoulder and abdomen.
5. Rabindranath v. Wallace (2010). Peter Wallace, 24, was returning on a train with fellow Hibernian soccer fans in England — many dressed in costume. One man was dressed as a sheep and Wallace thought it was funny to constantly flick his lighter near the cotton balls covering the sheep guy — until he burst into flames. Friends then made the matter worse, trying to douse the flames by throwing alcohol on the flaming man-sheep.
6. Dickson v. Hustonville Haunted House and Greg Walker (2009). Glenda Dickson, 51, fell out of a second-story window left open at the Hustonville Haunted House, owned by Greg Walker. Dickson was in a room called “The Crying Lady in the Bed” when one of the actors came up behind the group and started screaming. Everyone jumped in fright and Dickson jumped back through an open window that was covered with a sheet. She landed on a fire escape and then fell down some stairs, breaking four vertebrae.
8. Kentucky v. Watkins (2008). As a Halloween prank, restaurant manager Joe Watkins of the Chicken Ranch in Paris, Kentucky, thought it was funny to lie in a pool of blood on the floor. After seeing Watkins on the floor, a patron went screaming from the restaurant to report the murder. Watkins said that the prank was for another employee and that he tried to call the woman back on her cellphone. Under Kentucky law, a person can be charged with a false police report, even if he is not the one who filed it. The police charged Watkins for causing the woman to file the report.
Douglas Pierce practices in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and is a member of the law firm of James, Vernon & Weeks. He is a member of the WSBA Editorial Advisory Committee. He can be reached at dpierce@jvwlaw.net.

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