| Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them in the street without somebody trying to interfere. Cindy Lourcey was delivering post when she saw Mr and Mrs Scarlett fighting in the street. She tried to make them see sense. Instead, Charles Scarlett drew a pistol. He shot his wife in the head, the he made sure Lourcey was watching when he shot himself. Lourcey is suing his estate for intentional infliction of emotional distress. (Lourcey v Scarlett, Sup Ct Tenn, 2004) |
Dave Piscitelli was having marital trouble, so he looked for a fortune-teller in Yellow Pages. He entered the ‘pyramid-shaped Temple of Hope and Knowledge’ in Woolworths in Atlantic City, where ‘Sole Mio Balaam Nicola’ asked for $400 ‘under the desk’ to remove a curse. If he didn’t leave his wife, Dave was told, he’d be attacked by snakes. Twenty years later he had no wife, no snakes, and a nervous breakdown. He sued for the $600,000 he’d paid to Nicola’s ‘gypsy scam’ over the years. Sadly—due to unforeseen circumstances? – Nicola had gone bankrupt. (Piscitelli v Nicola, 2003) |
