Another Example Of No Personally Responsibility....

Ping898

Ping898

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Stuff like this annoys me....just as bad as people suing McDonald's for making them fat...or the dry cleaners sued for 54 million for loosing a pair of pants...
Another thing that makes the American court system look bad....

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/gamble...n/20080308204309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Gambler Sues Casinos for $20 Million

She was an ambitious lawyer and TV commentator who started going to Atlantic City casinos to relax, and soon was getting high-roller treatment that included limousines whisking her to the resort city.

Arelia Margarita Taveras says she was even allowed to bring her dog, Sasha, to the blackjack tables, sitting in her purse.

But her gambling spun out of control: She said she would go days at a time at the tables, not eating or sleeping, brushing her teeth with disposable wipes so she did not have to leave.

She says her losses totaled nearly $1 million.

Now she is chasing the longest of long shots: a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.
Click to expand...
 
Ping898 said:
Stuff like this annoys me....just as bad as people suing McDonald's for making them fat...or the dry cleaners sued for 54 million...
Another thing that makes the American court system look bad....

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/gamble...n/20080308204309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Click to expand...

What you have wonder is, why would someone who does something like that feel she has the right to expect other people to take her seriously in any quarter of life after this? After all, if she has to rely on other people to make her decisions for her—'I cannot exercise responsible judgment and act on it, so you have to do it for me or I will sue you'—then why on earth would anyone trust her with their legal standing? If you're claiming that you're that helpless, you're essentially saying that you have the judgment capabilities of a young child. Pretty pathetic, really....
 
exile said:
What you have wonder is, why would someone who does something like that feel she has the right to expect other people to take her seriously in any quarter of life after this? After all, if she has to rely on other people to make her decisions for her—'I cannot exercise responsible judgment and act on it, so you have to do it for me or I will sue you'—then why on earth would anyone trust her with their legal standing? If you're claiming that you're that helpless, you're essentially saying that you have the judgment capabilities of a young child. Pretty pathetic, really....
Click to expand...

Because if she wins, she's going to have clients out the wazoo...
 
In all seriousness - this has nothing to do with her personal responsibility. She's a lawyer, she know that she can show standing (personal injury), so it is worth her time. She has no legal fees - so if she wins, she gets her mil back, plus LOTS more, if she loses....no loss. I really don't think it would even hurt her reputation...
 
MBuzzy said:
In all seriousness - this has nothing to do with her personal responsibility. She's a lawyer, she know that she can show standing (personal injury), so it is worth her time. She has no legal fees - so if she wins, she gets her mil back, plus LOTS more, if she loses....no loss. I really don't think it would even hurt her reputation...
Click to expand...

I don't think so either...it will likely only help it. Win or lose, it gets her name out there for a landmark case at a time when she's trying to rebuild her practice.
 
Carol Kaur said:
Because if she wins, she's going to have clients out the wazoo...
Click to expand...

Well, yes.... there is that. But can you actually see her winning a case along those lines? I mean, doesn't it depend entirely on your ability to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the casino knew you were a gambling addict? And how would you go about doing that? It's different with a bar, where it's very clear that a patron is indeed falling down drunk and needs to be cut off; but the point is, if she were extremely rich, then whatever losses she incurred gambling might be trivial to her—and there are people like that—and the casino owners can legitimately say that they had no way to know whether that was the case or not.

I just don't see how she could make it stick....
 
MBuzzy said:
In all seriousness - this has nothing to do with her personal responsibility. She's a lawyer, she know that she can show standing (personal injury), so it is worth her time. She has no legal fees - so if she wins, she gets her mil back, plus LOTS more, if she loses....no loss. I really don't think it would even hurt her reputation...
Click to expand...
Well there are some court costs and at some point if she gets the wrong judge he could get pissed and put her on the hook for the costs of the casino lawyers....
And it again IMHO makes the US courts look pathetic....
 
MBuzzy said:
Its amazing what you can make stick with a good lawyer.
Click to expand...

Yes, true. I know a lawyer who said to me and some other people once, something along the lines of... "It does not matter about what's right or wrong, moral or immoral, sensible or silly. It only matters what legal and illegal."

And... the only people who are really aquainted with these things are attorneys! Once you get into the court room, look out -- you are in a different world altogether!

I do not gamble for exactly this reason -- too many people harm themselves doing it (the play money stuff on this board does not count -- that is only for fun).
Its very dangerous.

But, like Exile said -- a person who is bright enough and together enough to be a lawyer should just move on with their life! Get whatever help is needed and then move on, put this behind them without any action in the court. It makes them look bad, in my opinion. I would not want this person to be an advocate for me!
 
newGuy12 said:
Yes, true. I know a lawyer who said to me and some other people once, something along the lines of... "It does not matter about what's right or wrong, moral or immoral, sensible or silly. It only matters what legal and illegal."
Click to expand...

I would even argue that legal and illegal doesn't matter! There are loopholes to every law. Even if it is illegal, you can get around it.
 
That this woman refuses to take personal responsibility for her becoming "addicted" to gambling says that she has a long road ahead of her. I don't think any of the casinos there forced her to sit at the tables day in and day out and wasting her money. She could've gotten up and leave at any time.
True the casinos gave her red-carpet treatment, but they'd give ME red-carpet treatment if I blow a lot of money there all the time. It's called customer service. But it's something that is supposedly easy to say "No" to. She didn't and thus she screwed herself out of the supposed million dollars she lost at the gaming tables.

Carol maybe right with the fact that if she wins she'll have loads of clients and soon enough will make back the money she lost... only probably she'll lose it all again once she brings her dog back to the tables.
Heck, she ought to blame it on the dog for being a bad luck charm. Or she could sue the dog. But she's most likely going to lose in court. Hopefully.
 
MA-Caver said:
That this woman refuses to take personal responsibility for her becoming "addicted" to gambling says that she has a long road ahead of her.
Click to expand...

If she can convince them that it truly is an addiction--a medical condition--anything can happen.
 
arnisador said:
If she can convince them that it truly is an addiction--a medical condition--anything can happen.
Click to expand...
If so, then who is responsible for that? Us? Why should we pay for her problems? I don't think so.

- Ceicei
 
I agree...but if it's labeled a medical condition, then it can be construed as a disability, and then she has a lot of legal power on her side. Why can bartenders be sued for serving alcoholics?
 
I'm not so sure about this myself. I think if what she is saying is true I can see her point of view. From the way that she describes the situation it sounds as if she was clearly in a state of mental breakdown and it should have been obvious to the casino owners (who judging by the red carpet treatment were watching her and aware of her actions).

The fact that she was not eating or sleeping for five days, and with that her self care and hygiene would obviously be left wanting, should have rung alarm bells to the casino bosses that this lady was mentally ill and therefore lacked the capacity to make her decisions. I understand the points about personal responsibility but I have worked with people in the acute manic stages of Bipolar Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia and her behaviour of excessive spending and lack of personal care and lack of sleeping would not look out of place in those conditions. I am not suggesting she had Bipolar or Schizophrenia but what I am noting is that by the way she was acting she would have appeared like somebody mentally unwell but the casino bosses still took her cash.

To offer a similar example, when I was a student mental health nurse I worked on a dementia ward and we had a lady admitted who's family were in a dreadful state because a double glazing salesman had turned up at this very clearly unwell old ladies door and told her she needed these windows and had got her to sign a contract! It would have been obvious to the salesman that this lady was cognitively impaired and mentally unfit. She was disorientated and confused and the salesman explioted this.

Another example I remember is somebody in the manic stages of Bipolar taking all of their belongings out in the street, clearly mentally disturbed screaming that people could take what they wanted because Jesus had told her that she needed to get rid of her material possesions! Every person who took advantage of this situation were exploiting this young ladies mental illness.

I honestly feel that though these examples are of different presentations they have a similar theme to what the Casino Bosses were doing if the lady was presenting the way that she claims. Though people do have a personal responsibility I also strongly believe that we society have a responsibility to protect and not exploit people if they become mentally incapacitated through psychiatric illness.

Mind you she is a lawyer so there is a good chance she is making it all up!!
 
Have any of you known a compulsive gambler? Its not something they can just walk away from anymore then a drunk can walk away from a bar, or a crack addict can pass up his next fix.
However i feel her family, or friends should have stepped up and helped her. The casino is not to blame, but when a dealer sees the same woman in day after day and she grows agitated at the amount of money she is losing and yet she still cant leave something should have been said. But they are in it to make money so i doubt they will lose the case so long as they can prove that she wasn't unfairly targeted for special treatment because they felt she was prone to being addicted.
 
While I don't think you should be able to sue the casino's for your losses, I mean come on...

I do think the casino's go above and beyond "Customer Service" with some clients they know are going to lose money to convince them to stay and lose MORE money... "What? You are leaving after only losing $2,000.00? No no, we want to give you a complimentary 2 nights in our luxury suite and include these 2 show tickets to our sold out show, and a free limo ride there..."

They do have a habit of "snaking" high rollers and keeping them on the premises. They did a special about it on A&E or Discovery channel... So if you have a problem to begin with... they tend to exploit it. Its really not THAT different than a bar not stopping service to an alchoholic who is clearly drunk but keeps paying for his booze... except that the problem might not be as evident.
 
Ping898 said:
Stuff like this annoys me....just as bad as people suing McDonald's for making them fat...or the dry cleaners sued for 54 million for loosing a pair of pants...
Another thing that makes the American court system look bad....

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/gamble...n/20080308204309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Click to expand...



I saw this article, and I wonder if she spent the time to read the required bill boards about gambling addictions? Or the signs in the parking lots or ..., .

Nope put my blinders on and then go do what I want and then blame someone else in the end for it.
 
BrandiJo said:
But they are in it to make money so i doubt they will lose the case so long as they can prove that she wasn't unfairly targeted for special treatment because they felt she was prone to being addicted.
Click to expand...

According to the article quote, that's exactly what the casino did. Exclusive limosine transport to the tables, allowing her to bring her dog to the tables (which I can only presume was special treatment, I'm not familiar with casino rules about pets), actively inviting her when she was brushing her teeth with wet-wipes? If the standard is whether she was targeted for special treatment, then the casino's screwed.

But you are correct, a compulsive gambler is no more able to walk away then any other type of addict. Just brushing off her case by saying "personal responsibility" is kind of ignoring the realities of compulsion, especially when casinos are built to thrive off of such addiction.
 
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