Thursday, July 10, 2014

$10,000,000 Lawsuit for Sleeping? (This guy's nuts)

     Back on April 12th the Yankees were playing the Red Sox.  Big rivalry, huh?  One of those games that regardless of how good or bad the teams are, is always great to watch just because of all the bad blood between the two teams.  It's one of the biggest rivalries in all of sports.  Well at least one fan didn't think so.  During the live broadcast of the game one of the cameras caught a less than enthusiastic fan sleeping during the fourth inning.  Here's a link if you haven't seen it.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FDrcWTSczs
     This was funny and all while it happened, but the real joke is what happened a couple days ago.  This guy sued ESPN and MLB for not $1,000, $100,000, or $1,000,000, but $10,000,000 - ten million dollars!  And for what did he sue?  Because the announcers unleashed an "avalanche of disparaging words against him", which led to "substantial injury to his character and reputation" and "mental anguish."  Are you serious?
     I find so many things wrong with this that I don't really know where to start.  How about the fact that he waited three whole months to sue.  Why wait so long?  Did he expect everyone just to up and forget about it?
     Here's my personal biggest issue with what this guy did.  Before the lawsuit, everyone just makes a joke about how it was funny that a guy was sleeping.  No one could really tell who this guy was, just that he was sleeping Yankees guy.  But now, thanks to his dumb lawsuit, the whole world knows who this guy is.  In case you didn't know, he's 26 year old Andrew Rector.  Congrats, genius - now everyone will know who you are.
     Here's another point (and far from the last I've got).  Why, if you want to be out of the news, do you make such a ridiculous and unwarranted lawsuit?  He sued for being shown on TV, and now all he just did was put him all over the TV and the internet, now for an even worse reason than sleeping at a baseball game.
     Do I need to bring up how much money he sued for again?  Oh yeah, TEN MILLION.  Maybe a few of his friends made some jokes, but really?  He claims to be criticized and harassed everywhere he goes.  Now, three months later, we're supposed to believe his life is a living hell?  I wouldn't've thought it was even three days after the incident.  Why on Earth does this guy need so much money?  I can't really think of anything that could've happened that would warrant him suing for near that much money.
     Now on to the actual reasons he doesn't have a case.  First of all, the commentators made a few jokes, but no real foul language was used and there was no bad intentions.  Seriously, there really wasn't anything mean said on air, it was more shock from the announcers that a fan at a Yanks-Sox game could be sleeping through a game.  The announcers make more sense than Rector.  Who does sleep at a baseball game?  I know baseball can seem like a boring sport on TV, but it's not bad to watch in a stadium.  Just the fact that this guy could've slept through a homer is enough to make any baseball fan a little sick to his stomach.
     By the way, the real legal issue here is that when you buy a ticket you consent to potentially having your actions in captured on camera and potentially shown on TV.  That alone destroys any possible bits of an argument this guy has.
ESPN has released a statement saying there is no merit to any of the claims stated in the lawsuit which officially lists the defendant as Major League Baseball.
     I'm going to finish with a few more claims of what Proctor says the announcer called him. Apparently, he was described as not worthy to be a Yankees fan, a fat cow, a symbol of failure, and a confused individual that doesn't understand baseball or the Yanks-Sox rivalry. Try to find any of that in the video. Basically, this guy needs some serious help if he believes this one minute video is worthy of a ten million dollar lawsuit. It surprises me that his lawyer and mother both defend his side of this story. 

Thanks for reading,
Connor

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