The family of the mother who died in 2007Â trying to win a video game console for her kids received a $16.5 million jury award. Read about the strange case of Jennifer Strange here.
The mother entered a radio contest where participants drank as much water as possible for three hours without going to the bathroom. The contest was called “Hold your Wee for a Wii.â€
Entercom Communications fired 10 people involved in the stunt and the jury in this case found no responsibility for the death lay with the woman or her family, when it awarded half of what they were asking for.
I have a problem with the judgment, which I think falls in line with the kind of cases that some people want to limit against doctors, thinking such a limit will save the health care industry.
I don’t think it’s fair that the station had to make a massive payment or that the participant in the contest didn’t share in the responsibility.
The legal language reads that the station knew or should have known that encouraging a person to drink that much water could be hazardous to their health.
I would argue that they were no more responsible for that information than was the mother.
We’ve all heard, I think, that drinking too much water can be dangerous, or fatal. But it’s hard to imagine that someone would actually do it.
Radio stations have held such contests forever. Not the peeing kind, but, for example, having contestants keep a hand on a car for days, with the last person winning the car, or dancing or kissing for days straight.
If someone died because of heat exhaustion or cold, would it similarly be the station’s fault? I don’t think so. There comes a time when people have take responsibility for their own actions. No one made this woman drink without going to the bathroom. She chose to do it.
Unlike, say, a case where a doctor cuts off the wrong leg in an operation and some argue that his limits should be $250,000 to contain health care costs. There is a fault there, which the victim had no participation in.
Not so the radio contest.
Was the contest dumb? Yes. Was it sensational? Yes. Was it ill-advised? Yes. Would a reasonable person consider that it could be life threatening? I’d say no.
Addendum: The same day the verdict was announced, a radio DJ apologized for asking listeners to send in naked photos to win concert tickets.
