I saw this story on Huffington Post and remembered this case. All kinds of lawsuits.
Sacramento Bee
Survivors say stunt left them twisted
By Sam Stanton
sstanton@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 - 9:33 am
One woman who took part says the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest left her with a fear of water, and that she can no longer listen to the radio.
Another contestant says she has gained 60 pounds and suffers from irrational mood swings.
A third worries about her own mortality, "like I am destined to die young, maybe at my own hand."
Fallout from the January 2007 contest that left one contestant dead sparked media coverage worldwide – notoriety that's likely to resume Aug. 31, when a civil trial is set to begin.
The trial centers on the death of a 28-year-old mother of three, Jennifer Strange, who died after drinking massive amounts of water during a contest on Sacramento radio station The End (KDND, 107.9 FM) to win a Nintendo Wii game console.
Court documents show how the case unfolded.
Since the contest, the radio station's owners have fired 10 people, including the DJs involved; Strange's fellow contestants developed what they say is an irrational fear of water and sued the broadcaster; Strange's husband and children filed their own wrongful-death suit; and lawyers involved have submitted thousands of pages of claims and counterclaims.
After three of Strange's fellow contestants sued the broadcaster for emotional distress, Entercom Communications Corp. sought mental exams and questioned why their alleged problems after Strange's death "magically changed" and began "affecting their ability to drink water, impacting their families, causing sleeplessness and generalized anxiety, and depression."
One had weekly thoughts of suicide, according to court documents.
The winner of the contest, Lucy Davidson, said she was terribly sick afterward and vomited while still at the station. Now, she says, she can't listen to the radio because she is afraid of contests, and in her job at Wal-Mart she experiences "an inappropriate emotional reaction" when she sees someone put bottled water in their carts.
"I have come to realize that in a way I fear water," she said in a June declaration.
And she was never able to use the Wii at the center of the contest. Instead, it sat in a hall closet for more than a year until she turned it over to her attorney and "felt a huge weight fall off my shoulders."
Fired program director sues
After being fired from his $151,200-a-year job as program director, Steven Weed sued his former employer for wrongful termination.
When Entercom offered in October to renounce any attorneys' fees if Weed would drop what it saw as a meritless case, he refused. A judge ruled in favor of Entercom in March, and the company subsequently said it wanted Weed to pay $4,746 in filing and deposition fees. He was ordered to pay $225,144.50 more in attorneys' fees.
The court eventually approved $49,997.50 in fees, and Weed later abandoned his appeals in the case.
Because the case drew so much attention, the Strange family attorneys asked the court to have jurors in the case sign declarations before and after reaching a verdict swearing they had not researched it on the Internet.
The attorneys said temptation for juror misconduct is too great in a case with such notoriety.
"For example, if an individual were to use the Yahoo search engine and typed in 'Jennifer Strange water intoxication,' it will yield 63,500 Web sites and blogs which provide detailed information concerning the death of Jennifer Strange," the motion stated. A Google search would find 63,700, it added.
Roger Dreyer, the family's lead attorney, also said in a letter to Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd Phillps Jr. that because of the "tremendous amount of pretrial publicity" in the case, an initial jury panel of at least 200 potential jurors will be needed. He estimated the case could last seven weeks, with jury selection beginning Sept. 8.
The contest required participants to drink water without urinating over a three-hour period on "the Morning Rave" program. They were asked to drink 8-ounce bottles every 10 minutes. After they had consumed eight of them, they were given 16-ounce bottles to drink every 10 minutes.