More frivolous litigation. Lawyers out of control.
A civil lawsuit has been brought against the wife of renowned pastor Joel Osteen by a Continental Airlines flight attendant. The attendant, Sharon Brown, accuses Victoria Osteen of assaulting her before the start of a 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colorado. Brown alleges that Victoria Osteen threw her against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast during an outburst over a stain on her first-class seat. The FAA fined Victoria Osteen $3,000 for interfering with a crew member.
The lawyer for Victoria Osteen called the lawsuit silly and denied that her client assaulted Brown, although the FAA clearly decided otherwise. Brown’s attorney said he hopes the trial will show “that celebrity status doesn’t take precedence.” What I find disturbing and absurd is that Brown is demanding an apology and punitive damages amounting to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth.
I am not going to go into the details of the incident as Victoria Osteen’s guilt or innocence is not what is really important here. There are many cases of celebrities and famous people acting rudely, as if they were above the law. Actress Naomi Campbell comes to mind as a great example although I could name many others. What I find absurd is the amount of damages Brown is suing for. According to court documents, Brown claims that she suffers from anxiety and hemorrhoids because of the incident and that her faith was affected. She also wants her medical expenses paid for counseling.
Let me see if I have the crux of this lawsuit. Sharon Brown was thrown against a door and elbowed in the chest. For this she wants 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth? How does one suffer anxiety that requires counseling from an incident like this? I cannot even imagine how hemorrhoids result from an incident like this. My guess is that Brown’s lawyer is going for medical expenses for anxiety because Brown didn’t actually suffer any physical injuries due to the incident. It is much harder for the defense to disprove mental suffering as a result of the incident although I would think it highly unlikely that a flight attendant trained to handle much more stressful situations would suffer any long term trauma.
As for Brown’s faith having suffered and the hemorrhoids, (I swear hemorrhoids is in the lawsuit) I cannot imagine a jury in the world, even one that is not particularly fond of celebrities, finding any merit in those allegations. This is just a case of a person and their lawyer trying to milk a celebrity for all they can. Sharon Brown no more deserves 10 percent of Victoria Osteens’s net worth than you or I do. This should have been settled out of court but I am sure that Brown and her lawyer thought that they could shake down Joel Osteen and his wife for much more if they took it to court with all the attendant publicity. They are probably hoping that they will be given a big pile of money that neither one of them deserves.
If I was deciding the case I would award Sharon Brown court costs and maybe $10,000. There is no way that she suffered long term anxiety that requires counseling, damage to her faith, and hemorrhoids from this incident. I wish I could also do something about her lawyer, who obviously doesn’t care about anything except making a nice big commission from this ridiculous suit. The incident should have ended with the $3,000 fine the FAA issued to Victoria Osteen.
