Isabelle Hood
In an unusual legal twist, a woman found herself taking Universal Studios in Florida to court after a frightful visit to their Haunted House of Horrors. The woman alleged that her experience in the terrifying attraction resulted in psychological trauma. She got really scared when an actor, dressed like a werewolf, chased her with a fake chainsaw. She was so frightened that she fell down. After this scary event, she decided to sue the actor and everyone else who worked at the haunted house. Even though she didn’t get hurt from the fall, she said the whole thing made her feel really bad inside.
But in the courtroom, things didn’t go her way. Despite her psychological distress, she hadn’t sustained any physical injuries from her fall. This aspect of her case was pivotal when she filed her injury claim in court. She fervently argued that her traumatic experience was severe enough to warrant compensation, despite the absence of physical harm. The whole ordeal had left her rattled and she was convinced that the actor, along with the rest of the venue’s staff, should be held accountable for her distress.
In the end, the judge didn’t agree with the lady. He said that the Haunted House of Horrors was supposed to be scary. It was meant to give people a little fright. That’s why people go there in the first place! So, he decided that the lady couldn’t get any money. The moral of the story? If you go into a haunted house, you might get scared, and that’s just part of the spooky fun!
Envision yourself held hostage in your own home, terrified and anxious, your mind working overtime. After a nerve-wracking few hours, you seize an opportunity to escape. You find the police and your kidnapper is arrested. It should be the end of the nightmare, right? Well, the plot twists when, months later, you find yourself being sued by your very own kidnapper! Sounds preposterous? This was the strange reality for a couple from Topeka, Kansas, in 2009.
The bizarre story starts with Jesse Dimmick, a 27-year-old Denver resident who had fled to Kansas, evading a murder charge. One fateful day in September, Dimmick burst into the home of newlyweds Lindsey and Jared Rowley. According to The Kansas City Star, Dimmick claimed that he was being pursued by someone, likely the police, who intended to kill him. He convinced the couple to shelter him. Surprisingly, witnesses claimed the Rowleys not only provided Dimmick with snacks but even watched movies with him until he fell asleep, which was when they managed to escape and alert the police. Subsequently, the Rowleys decided to sue Dimmick in a civil court, seeking $75,000 for trespassing their home and causing emotional distress.
But Dimmick had a trick up his sleeve. In a cunning move, he retaliated by filing a counter-lawsuit for breach of contract, as reported by The Topeka Capital-Journal. In his handwritten court documents, he argued that he had formed an “oral contract” with the Rowleys – he had offered them money in exchange for hiding him, to which he claimed they had agreed. However, his case was dismissed, with the Rowleys’ attorney Robert E. Keeshan explaining that a binding contract requires a “meeting of the minds” on all essential terms, including an agreement on price. In May 2010, Dimmick was found guilty of two counts of kidnapping and sentenced to 11 years in the Kansas Department of Corrections. Following his sentence, he was extradited to Colorado to face his murder charges and was further sentenced to 37 years. His ploy to twist the law ended in failure, and justice, in this peculiar case, was served.
