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News of the Weird

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The following are from the San Jose Mercury News, 28 October, 1990:

The Litigious society
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	In the latest "He Stood Me Up" lawsuit, Dana Jurist won $79.50
in a Downington, Pa., court from Shawn Norbeck, who failed to keep
their date for the junior prom in May.  He said he had a virus, but
in reality, he had gotten tickets to see the rock group Rush.

	St. Paul, Minn., bank president Michael Brennan filed a
$50,000 lawsuit in July against the city and a construction company
for a 1989 mishap in his bank's restroom.  The construction company
had shut off a sewer line without notifying the bank, and when Brennan
flushed, he was suddenly washed out with "200 to 300 gallons" of raw
sewage.  The company offered only to buy him a new suit.

	Rabbi Loring J. Frank was sued in Fort Lauderdale in July by
two lawyers because he had been 90 minutes late in performing their
wedding in 1988.  Christine and Russel Adler claim that Frank's delay
caused guests to run up a bar bill, caused Russel's back condition to
flare up, and caused guests to gossip whether the marriage was in
trouble.  The Adlers sued for $130,000 -- seven times the cost of the
wedding.

Wrong place, wrong time
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	In July, Jerry Conner and Sheila Maria Boyd were arrested in a
New York City restaurant where they had gone to celebrate their
wedding, when a customer recognized them as the team that had robbed
him and 17 others in a doctor's office the month before.

	Darnell Madison, 37, was shot and killed in July in Homewood,
Ala., when he burst into a motel room intending to rob the seven men
whom he had seen with a wad of money.  He was unaware they were armed
police officers working on another case.

	Danny Coleman, 36, was hospitalized with leg injuries near
Peoria, Ill., in August, after he had stopped on the side of
Interstate 74 to relieve himself and was knocked out when a tire broke
loose from a passing truck and pummeled him against his car.

	In North Little Rock, Ark., in August, Victor Lyons, 20, was
hit in the foot by a stray bullet from a nearby parking lot gunfight
while he was hiding in some bushes spying on his girlfriend as she
used a pay phone.

	In June a replacement bus driver hired by Greyhound during the
drivers' strike met the bus he was to drive from Delaware to New York
City.  However, a passenger on the bus wound up driving to New York
because the substitute driver could not drive a stick shift.

	Rory Johnson, 29, was arrested in May for a liquor store
robbery in Elkhart, Ind.  Johnson had parked in the back of the store
to facilitate his getaway but had trouble exiting because of
congestion due to road construction.  Five minutes after the robbery,
he was sitting in his car, having moved only a few feet, and liquor
store employees pointed him out to police.

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|Matt Braun -- Motorola, ????????????? Division|
|Urbana Design Centre--Cupertino CA Chapter    |
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