02/06/2004: 
Criminally Absurd
I have been scarred by a Jackson, who is, surprisingly not Michael
from the "Greedy Litigious Americans" Department
from The Smoking Gun
FEBRUARY 5--It took almost three days, but the first lawsuit has been filed in connection with Janet Jackson's breast. A Tennessee woman yesterday filed a proposed class action lawsuit "on behalf of all Americans" who watched the Super Bowl halftime show and were somehow injured by Miss Jackson's adorned nipple. In the federal complaint shown here, Terri Carlin, a 47-year-old Knoxville bank employee, contends that Jackson's exposure and other "sexually explicit conduct" during halftime festivities caused viewers to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury." Details of those supposed injuries were not further described in the complaint filed by attorney Wayne A. Ritchie II. Along with Jackson, Carlin has named as defendants Justin Timberlake, CBS, MTV, and Viacom. Carlin's complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, though an exact dollar figure is not specified. But it seems billions would be in order since Carlin notes that punitive damages should not exceed the gross revenues of all defendants for the past three years.
Janet's breast caused people to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury?" Serious injury? You have to be kidding! The only serious injury I see coming out of this is the sprained thumbs of a hundred thousand Americans as they slammed it down on the rewind button on their TiVo"s, or perhaps a sprained ankle running to their computers to download the image. It was on screen for less than 2 seconds. I do not think that even Santo's mom would be outraged, angered, or embarrassed at this foolishness, and if she was not then no one would. If they had flashed the "goatse.cx" image up there I could buy into this frivolous suit, but this is just outright abuse of the legal system.
2 Annotations Submitted
Friday the 6th of February, rafuzo noted:
I was seriously injured when I fell over my couch while running to check if TiVo had properly recorded the moment for posterity. Several of my friends suffered neck injuries from dropped jaws. Fire away!
Friday the 6th of February, santo26 noted:
I remember the incident as if it were 5 days or so ago. I think the most shameful aspect of the halftime show WAS the entire halftime show- not because I was offended by Janet's er, ah, naked ploy to sell more copies of her new CD, but at the entire thing. It caused me emotional strain to have to watch it because I wanted to watch the second half, which should have began 20 minutes earlier. I encourage you to join with me in a class action lawsuit against life, the universe, and everything for punitive damages not to exceed the size of prof and wiggins' mom's arses combined.
