I was browsing Yahoo! News today and came across this from Reuters:
Colorado Teens Fined for Giving Cookies to Neighbors
Quote:
Fri Feb 4,10:49 PM ET
DURANGO, Colo. (Reuters) - A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbor said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts.
The pair were ordered to pay $871.70 plus $39 in court costs after neighbor Wanita Renea Young, 49, filed a lawsuit complaining that the unsolicited cookies, left at her house after the girls knocked on her door, had triggered an anxiety attack that sent her to the hospital the next day.
Taylor Ostergaard, then 17, and Lindsey Jo Zellitte, 18, paid the judgment on Thursday after a small claims court ruling by La Plata County Court Judge Doug Walker, a court clerk said on Friday.
The girls baked cookies as a surprise for several of their rural Colorado neighbors on July 31 and dropped off small batches on their porches, accompanied by red or pink paper hearts and the message: "Have a great night."
The Denver Post newspaper reported on Friday that the girls had decided to stay home and bake the cookies rather than go to a dance where there might be cursing and drinking.
It reported that six neighbors wrote letters entered as evidence in the case thanking the girls for the cookies.
But Young said she was frightened because the two had knocked on her door at about 10:30 p.m. and run off after leaving the cookies.
She went to a hospital emergency room the next day, fearing that she had suffered a heart attack, court records said.
The judge awarded Young her medical costs, but did not award punitive damages. He said he did not think the girls had acted maliciously but that 10:30 was fairly late at night for them to be out.
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While reading this, I just kept waiting for the "something else." As in, there must be something else going on here, maybe the neighbor and the girls often butted head... something! But according to what is here in the article, apparently there isn't a "something else," apparently you can do a good deed and be sued for it.
And 10:30 is late for them to be out? The girls were 17 and 18 at the time and Colorado curfew law is midnight for anyone under 18, so they weren't breaking any curfew laws by being out at that time. And what is the judge trying to say here, that had it been at an earlier time he would not have held a judgement against them?
This just furthers the thought that you can't be nice for fear there will be repercussions.
