VisorCentral.com - no sense of humour? sue!

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-- no sense of humour? sue! (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=23257)

Posted by ToolkiT on 05-14-2002 01:12 AM:

no sense of humour? sue!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation...09/toy-yoda.htm

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Posted by mensachicken on 05-14-2002 02:43 AM:

Re: no sense of humour? sue!

quote:
Originally posted by ToolkiT
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation...09/toy-yoda.htm

i can't tell whether you think she's in the wrong for suing or not. i say power to her. who knows what was involved in her winning the contest. perhaps she brought in much revenue for the company and then felt the joke was a diss. the article's lack of details blows.

mc

Posted by rjuhl on 05-14-2002 03:10 AM:

Read this article before. The owner let the joke go too long. Woman did make lots of sales, and was never let on to it being a joke until time for owner to pay up.

Agree that she should have and did win the suit.

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Posted by ToolkiT on 05-14-2002 06:25 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by rjuhl
Read this article before. The owner let the joke go too long. Woman did make lots of sales, and was never let on to it being a joke until time for owner to pay up.

Agree that she should have and did win the suit.

I guess you are right... though I still think sueing is a bit dramatic for a joke gone wrong...

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Posted by thorin on 05-14-2002 08:14 AM:

agreed. kudos to the reporter for providing little to no actual information. I bet the owner was being a real prick about it.

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Posted by rjuhl on 05-14-2002 11:45 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by ToolkiT

I guess you are right... though I still think sueing is a bit dramatic for a joke gone wrong...

Normally agree, but a joke that goes on for months where the owner makes profit, ceases to be a joke. Waitress worked hard and owner was trying to take advantage, calling it all a joke.

Wouldn't have been fair to the waitress NOT to have won.

And I do believe we are too quick to sue in this country. Things like this are just stupidity and take up the courts time. Think what justified this as a legitimate suit was the length of time the joke went on and the intentional harm to another person.

my two cents.

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Posted by Toby on 05-14-2002 12:41 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by ToolkiT
I guess you are right... though I still think sueing is a bit dramatic for a joke gone wrong...

In most cases, I'd agree, but this wasn't a joke between friends. It was an employer holding a sales contest between employees. He then led the winning employee (who presumedly increased his business quite significantly) into the parking lot blindfolded (talk about dramatic), into who knows how big of a crowd, and humiliated her. This wasn't a joke gone wrong. It went exactly as he planned (except for the getting sued part). If you want to call it a 'cruel prank', I'd agree, but it definitely wasn't a joke.

Posted by Madkins007 on 05-14-2002 03:29 PM:

Lots of unanswered questions in the article.

Beer sales contest? How much extra selling was involved- enough to create a legitimate hope of a real car as the main prize? Thats a LOT of beer to sell in two months or less. (The article does not say how long the contest ran, but if she won in May and it was an April Fool's joke, we can assume that it went from April 1 to May 31 at the longest- and could easily have ended May 1st).

Do they often run such contests with such extravagent prizes? Was there a history of either big prizes or jokes she should have used to base her expectations on? One of my kids works at a restaraunt where they often have similar contests- and the prize is often worth even less than a 'new toy Yoda'!

How was the prize advertised? If it was in print and said 'Toyota', then that is one thing. If this was entirely a verbal deal, then shouldn't THAT have set off a few warning bells?

What about the other employees? Did they think that a real car was the prize? Was this a joke she was singled out for?

Trying to judge the case on the basis of this far-too skimpy article is an interesting exercise in speculation, but we do not know enough from this if there is a basis to win a suit or not. Thank God that is the judge's problem, not ours!

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Posted by Toby on 05-14-2002 04:26 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Lots of unanswered questions in the article.

Sure, but considering the outcome of the case, we can guess.

quote:
Beer sales contest? How much extra selling was involved- enough to create a legitimate hope of a real car as the main prize? Thats a LOT of beer to sell in two months or less.

Considering the markup for beer at most restaurants, I doubt if it was an infeasible amount.

quote:
(The article does not say how long the contest ran, but if she won in May and it was an April Fool's joke, we can assume that it went from April 1 to May 31 at the longest- and could easily have ended May 1st).

One would think that an April Fools 'joke' should have _ended_ on the 1st to make it plausible that it was the real excuse.

quote:
Do they often run such contests with such extravagent prizes? Was there a history of either big prizes or jokes she should have used to base her expectations on? One of my kids works at a restaraunt where they often have similar contests- and the prize is often worth even less than a 'new toy Yoda'!

Sure, but Hooters isn't the typical restaurant.

quote:
How was the prize advertised? If it was in print and said 'Toyota', then that is one thing. If this was entirely a verbal deal, then shouldn't THAT have set off a few warning bells?

What about the other employees? Did they think that a real car was the prize? Was this a joke she was singled out for?

If it was, that would seem to make it more malicious and even less likely to be a 'joke'.

quote:
Trying to judge the case on the basis of this far-too skimpy article is an interesting exercise in speculation, but we do not know enough from this if there is a basis to win a suit or not. Thank God that is the judge's problem, not ours!

Yep, and it seems that somebody thought that the judge would see it her way.

Posted by K. Cannon on 05-14-2002 06:40 PM:

Um...

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
and humiliated her.

But her tight orange shirt and skimpy shorts didn't.

Posted by Toby on 05-14-2002 06:59 PM:

Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by K. Cannon
But her tight orange shirt and skimpy shorts didn't.

Should people be humiliated at the beach because they're wearing a bikini? When in Rome...

Posted by K. Cannon on 05-14-2002 07:01 PM:

Re: Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Should people be humiliated at the beach because they're wearing a bikini? When in Rome...

Yes, some people should be humiliated to wear a bikini, but I suspect it's for a different reason than someone who works at Hooters'.

Posted by MarkEagle on 05-14-2002 10:25 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by K. Cannon
Yes, some people should be humiliated to wear a bikini

Unfortunately, most of those who should be aren't

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Posted by dampeoples on 05-14-2002 10:39 PM:

Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by K. Cannon

But her tight orange shirt and skimpy shorts didn't.

The shirts are white and the shorts are orange. She also took the job, negating the humilitaing costume argument

Posted by Madkins007 on 05-15-2002 04:03 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Yep, and it seems that somebody thought that the judge would see it her way.

Eh, possibly. We don't know the details of the settlement other than the lawyers catchy quote about 'pick out whatever type of Toyota she wants.' (Not to split hairs, but I notice he did not say she could "buy" any Toyota she wants!)

A lot of places settle even frivolous suits just to avoid the hassles. Being involved in a legal battle myself right now, I would gladly settle- even though I am in the right and am sure a judge would see it my way- just to get out of this mess.

The comments about Hooters not being a typical place, and from the look of their website, etc. I think it would have been perfectly in line with what appears to be the corporate philosophy for this whole thing to have been a gag from the beginning.

Again- I wonder what the other employees thought they were going to get.

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Posted by K. Cannon on 05-15-2002 04:22 PM:

Re: Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by dampeoples

The shirts are white and the shorts are orange.

Having never been to a Hooters, I thought I did pretty good.

quote:
She also took the job, negating the humilitaing costume argument

I certainly wasn't suggesting that she proceed on a humiliating costume cause of action. i'm saying that being blindfolded might not be all that humiliting to someone wearing some skimpy clothes for money.

Posted by Toby on 05-15-2002 04:39 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Eh, possibly. We don't know the details of the settlement other than the lawyers catchy quote about 'pick out whatever type of Toyota she wants.' (Not to split hairs, but I notice he did not say she could "buy" any Toyota she wants!)

I think you're stretching there.

quote:
A lot of places settle even frivolous suits just to avoid the hassles.

If they settled it for the cost of a Toyota, that's on par with losing.

quote:
Being involved in a legal battle myself right now, I would gladly settle- even though I am in the right and am sure a judge would see it my way- just to get out of this mess.

Settling = plea bargaining.

quote:
The comments about Hooters not being a typical place, and from the look of their website, etc. I think it would have been perfectly in line with what appears to be the corporate philosophy for this whole thing to have been a gag from the beginning.

The difference is in who's in control. An employee of the place is 'in on the joke'. They chose to work there with full knowledge of what was involved. If that same level of knowledge wasn't involved with the 'contest', then I see a difference.

quote:
Again- I wonder what the other employees thought they were going to get.

No idea. I wonder how much beer they sold compared to the winner. I think the amount of effort would show how seriously they took it.

Posted by K. Cannon on 05-15-2002 04:45 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
and am sure a judge would see it my way-

That's another good reason people also settle--you might think a judge/jury is going to see it your way, but you just never know.

Posted by Toby on 05-15-2002 04:46 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Um...

quote:
Originally posted by K. Cannon
[...] i'm saying that being blindfolded might not be all that humiliting to someone wearing some skimpy clothes for money.

Again - there's a difference. Wearing skimpy clothes as a part of a job where you knew that going in, and where all of the other waitresses are wearing the same thing is one thing. Being singled out as the punchline in a 'joke' is another. Here's a for example (since we're stretching things already): let's say that you were asked to take part in a blind taste test for soft drinks. Instead of putting a soft drink into one glass, they let a (verified healthy in every way) baby pee in it. Everyone else watching knows about it but you. You taste both glasses. They pull off the blindfold and let you in on the 'joke'. What do you do?

Posted by K. Cannon on 05-15-2002 07:04 PM:

Am I wearing a thin-white T shirt stretched tightly across my perky chest with orange shorts that conform to my bottom?

(I am smart enough to know that there is a difference between donning scant attire as part of a job's wardrobe and getting unknowingly blindfolded as a joke. My original comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. However, I also think that it maybe should be considered "humiliating" to agree to wear scant attire to get a job. At least it would to me. Then again, the most humilitating thing I think I have ever seen was in a photograph that made the e-mail rounds after last year's Mardi Gras. All of which goes to prove that some women will do anything for money, or even for free in the case of the photograph.)

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