Posted on 03/14/2007 8:40:13 PM PDT by siunevada
(CBS) LOS ANGELES A woman severely burned when her skirt caught fire while she was praying near a statue of a Catholic saint can seek punitive damages against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Josefina Martin, then 56, suffered third-degree burns to her ankles, legs, back, arms and hands during the Oct. 16, 2005, incident in a courtyard of Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima, according to her lawsuit.
In January 2006, Martin and her husband, Salvador Martin, sued the archdiocese, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, Mary Immaculate Church and the manufacturer of the skirt she wore, alleging negligence and premises liability.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, who is the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, is not mentioned by name in the legal action.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled the Martins' attorney, Justin Ehrlich, had made a basic showing that church officials acted in reckless disregard for the safety of its parishioners.
Punitive damages are meant to punish a defendant and set an example in the hope of preventing misconduct from being repeated. They can often represent the major portion of a damage award.
Brian L. Williams, an attorney for the archdiocese, stated in his court papers that the motion for punitive damages should be denied because there was no evidence the archdiocese intended to harm Martin.
"Simply put, this case centers around an unfortunate accident -- nothing else," Williams' court papers tated. "Moreover, this is a case of questionable negligence on the part of the archdiocese based upon the significant (shared) fault of Ms. Martin."
However, a Mary Immaculate Church employee responsible for keeping the premises safe admitted in a deposition that she knew nearly nine months before Martin was burned that the candles around the statue were a growing danger, according to the Martins' court papers.
Many church employees said that as many as 200 candles would be on the ground in front of the statue at any one time, according to couple's court papers. Martin had reached to touch one foot of the St. Jude statue and closed her eyes to pray when she realized her clothing was afire, according to the Martins' court papers.
In his ruling, Treu noted that a church maintenance worker said that three months before Martin was injured he helped a little girl whose hair ignited when leaning over the candles near the same statue.
The worker also said he helped a woman whose skirt caught fire about three months after Martin was hurt, according to the lawsuit.
Another church employee testified in a deposition that about once a week for the past five years he has warned parishioners and their children to be careful about getting too near the candles, according to the Martins' court papers.
The trial is set May 29, but Williams said he may ask for a later start.
Candles and church. Certainly an unexpected combination, I'd say.
Back before the trial lawyer age, that would be an indication someone was trying to tell her something.
I think she got the idea watching the movie, NACHO LIBRE. Maybe the Archbishop can sue the makers of the movie!!
Let's play dominoes.....
Play with fire...get burned. The Laws of Physics don't have favored players or consequences.
This woman didn't know that leaning over open flames might cause a problem? What a frigging moron. Obvious stupidity of the plaintiff should be grounds for dismissal with prejudice.
Ding Ding Ding!
That's the winning post, IMHO!
Why didn't she sue God too?
Wonder is she is in US legally?
I'm sad for the womans' pain....
But there's something about a person
going into a church and bursting
into flames....
Mahony testified for this priest and the jury DID NOT believe him! The jury convicted the priest and when he served his sentence, he was deported back to Ireland.
All I can think nowadays is thank god, my brothers and I were never assaulted by that priest...
Exactly. I guess the church should have posted signs saying, "Warning: Getting clothing and hair too close to flames may result in burns. As if our candles are any different than candles everywhere, to which you've been exposed all your life."
Prayers are usually private, but I guess we now know that she was praying for a windfall of money and a brainless, anti-Catholic judge.
I'm not sure I understand in this instance what the court was saying.
Yes, it was clear that there was a danger, and the danger was known.
But in this case, that danger was not a nuisance, but was a direct result of a necessary and essential part of the very existance of the statue, namely people being able to light candles around it.
That is as much why the statue is there as for the woman to touch it and pray.
Is the court saying that they should have put up a fence to keep people from touching the statue over the candles (a violation of the relgious purpose of the statue?)
Or is the court saying they should have banned candles (again violating the religious purpose of the statue)?
Or is the court simply saying they should have put a sign up saying "warning: Burning candles are on fire and can catch you on fire" -- a statement that would be ludicrously trivial for anybody with a brain to figure out.
Apparently the idea of taking risks for your faith is unknown to this court.
ATTENTION THIS IS STANDARD INCOMPETENT REPORTING BY CBS:
FYI:
Such motions are generally difficult to get but HAVE TO BE MADE TO PRESERVE THE APPEAL. There is NOTHING special about this motion or its denial.
It only means the plaintiff can ask for "X" at trial. It does not mean they will get it.
CBS is just being incompetent by intention because this is a Christian Church.
A message from God?
I'm likin' #7, too.
Been lighting candles forever...never got burned once. Never heard of anyone until now. I hope she recovers but to sue the church on this? Wow...
One lady was holding a candle and not watching very well. A man in front of me and her started backing into it, and I reached out and gave him a gentle push which made him turn around and avoid singing his suitcoat. Reach out and push someone while you are being received into the church lol.
At a family Christmas gathering many years ago, my young daughter got too close to a lit candle (my parents were not being negligent, it was on a server, and I mean candles are candles), and her hair caught on fire. My uncle quick as a flash used his hands to put it out. She was unscathed, bless him. If he burned his hands, he never uttered a word of complaint about it.
She walks amongst ~200 lit candles with a dress, bends over and closes her eyes. I hope the defense atty points out that the _itch lit one and it was the one that probably set her on fire. Some idiots are just vicious.
Yes, but have you ever walked amonst ~200 in a dress, closed your eyes and bent over them?
I remember some articles about 2 (?) years ago about Enviros trying to get candles banned from churches.
I wonder if this lawsuit is a set up for this?
At Christmas one year at my sister's, she had passed her arm over a candle and her sweater must have been synthetic, it didn't burst into flames but started melting into her skin.
I wasn't even looking at her but caught her moving weirdly out of the corner of my eye, she wasn't saying anything.
I exploded out of the chair, grabbed the sweater at the waist at the back and pulled it over her head and off her arms in one move. Less than a second and no thinking.
Good thing she was wearing a bra.
Good thing she was actually in trouble, too. No one else realized she was in trouble and they were all looking at me like I had lost my mind.
That old case was about breathing
the candle smoke, and supposedly
higheer incidents of health problems
related to frequent church going.
Nope..just struck an odd chord
in my mind. ;o)
"Exactly. I guess the church should have posted signs saying, "Warning: Getting clothing and hair too close to flames may result in burns. As if our candles are any different than candles everywhere, to which you've been exposed all your life."
Brilliance! What I was going to say but better!
Is there anyone really unclear on the matter of candles being both hot and having the ability to start fires?
If she gets out of a cab, slams the door on her skirt, and gets dragged a few feet, will she sue the driver and cab company, maybe Ford/Chevy/Dodge for not preventing it?
If you do stupid, reckless, careless things and something bad happens... You can find the person to blame really easily, just look in the mirror. This country is becoming a bunch of spineless, no-account wimps. "It's not my fault..." is apparently to become our national motto. Guess what people, more often than not, it is your own d*mn fault!
Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Now much of our clothing isn't so flammable (I've read how synthetics melt and would burn and hurt like crazy, maybe not in the first seconds of shock of it) or contains flame retardants, and I've read many accounts when women and girls died when their clothing caught fire, used to be quite common with the long dresses and petticoats, etc. I remember being taught in school and by my parents if your clothes catch fire to either roll on the ground or try to smother it with a blanket. The victims tend to panic and run, thus fanning the flames.
Isn't this Archdiocese the one which support illegal aliens, with the commie cardinal who marched through the streets last year? If so, I hope she bankrupts them.
I personally have a very serious problem with anyone suing a church. There's something inherently wrong in the premise.
Churches are funded by the gifts of parishioners to do the work of God. These gifts are given freely and with good will. To sue a church is to steal directly from this source of good will and to lay claim to these gifts as your own. It's blasphemous in my eyes and unfathomable to me as a Christian.
I question this woman's priorities in life and in her faith.
She must be a slow learner, a poor listener, or both.
200 lit candles on the ground in front of & around the statue is a clear and present danger, with empahasis on CLEAR.
It was definitely an out-of-the ordinary experience. It was like I knew exactly what was happening and didn't have to think or talk and she knew exactly what I was doing. As I approached she bent forward at the waist so I could grab the sweater at her back. I don't remember if we even made eye contact. It was a pullover and I pulled it over and off.
We talked about it right after it happened because everybody was in shock. One second everybody is chatting before dinner, the next she is standing there in her bra and I'm standing there with her sweater in my hands. I know we had the same experience because we had to explain what had happened.
Maybe it was two seconds, not one second. It was so fast I couldn't believe I moved that fast.
What? The MSM is distorting a story? I'm SHOCKED!!!
That sounds very familiar.
I think you are right.
Can't say that I have my friend...can't say that I have. :)
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