A little more than 6 months ago, I expressed surprise on these very pages when I found out that MLB pitcher Gil Meche was under contract for more than $11MM per year. Today, we're brought the story of Meche's retirement, courtesy of the NY Times:
“When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche said this week by phone from Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”
Meche had a guaranteed contract and could have shown up, chewed some sunflower seeds, maybe pitched the occasional inning of relief, while collecting his 10 figure salary. Instead, he manned up and went out with dignity.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand, is exhibiting tendencies that I certainly wouldn't vote for in an elected official:
"Rep. Dennis Kucinich has rapped a U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria with a $150,000 lawsuit for selling him a vegetarian sandwich wrap in 2008 that he says caused dental damage when he bit into an olive pit.
The lawsuit that the Cleveland Democrat filed Jan. 3 against operators and suppliers of the Longworth House Office Building cafeteria says the sandwich he bought there "on or about" April 17, 2008 "contained dangerous substances, namely an olive pit, that a consumer would not reasonably expect to find in the final product served."
Now - I'm quite sure that Mr. Kucinich is correct, and that the olive pit was a dangerous substance, and I do think that his medical bills should be paid for. Although I was not privy to the details of Mr. Kucinich's pain and suffering, and I'm sure the olive pit encounter was quite unpleasant, I do not think that his $150k lawsuit for damages is something that represents the qualities that I'd want one of my elected officials to exhibit. All you legal eagles can click the link above for the actual lawsuit.
-KD
5 comments:
Where is my 10 Trillion dollar pain and suffering settlement from having been exposed to our US Congress for years on end?
The players union will be taking this guy out behind the dugout to teach him how it's done! Or they'll want to, no doubt.
Of course sitting on a nice little nest egg already makes this principled move easier. But kudos to him for still having that money to fall back on. Many have lost it all quite quickly.
All in all you have to admire him for this move.
I wish Carl Pavano had done this for the Yankees. Collecting $40 million for 9 wins over 4 years is excessive, even in Pinstripes.
He should be able to recover for the olive pit in his sandwich. $150,000 sounds like a lot to demand though, unless I'm getting $50,000 of it, in which case it probably isn't enough.
;-)
The Kucinich situation is not how it first appears. For all we know, he asked for the cafeteria to pay his medical bills and the cafeteria refused. So, he does what he must and brings a lawsuit.
While the lawsuit seeks damages of $150,000, this is not the actual amount of damages. It never is. It's just a high end number, so that the plaintiff does not limit himself. It's a legal falsehood. So, it may appear that he is suing for $150k, but he may very well have initially sought just his medical bills and the $150k is just a high end number.
Frankly, $150k as a top-end number is pretty low.
And to be clear, I'm a political moron, so I have little opinion or knowledge of Kucinich. I just thought I'd offer some legal insight.
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