It doesn’t look like part-time radio employee Matt Carter is going to get his legal
expenses reimbursed in the latest legal twist to the 2007 death of a listener who took part in a radio promotion..
According to Central Valley Business Times, the California
3rd District Court of Appeal says Carter “did not have an absolute right to
chose his own attorney to represent him at the expense of his employer” or the
radio station’s insurance company.
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| Jennifer Strange |
Carter was among those involved in the ill-fated promotion
that saw a Rancho Cordova woman die. Jennifer
Strange, then 28 and a mother of three, was taking part in a promotion dubbed
“Hold Your Wee for a Wii” and which involved drinking as much water as possible
in a three-hour period without going to the bathroom. She drank about two
gallons of water and died as a result of apparent “water intoxication” – a
dilution of body fluids leading to fatal changes in electrolyte levels.
Carter was a part-time employee of KDND 107.9 FM the End,
owned by Entercom Sacramento LLC, a unit of Entercom Communications Corp. His
job that morning was to pass out bottles of water to the contestants. Four days
after the death, he and others were fired, but Entercom promised to provide
legal counsel.
However, Carter hired his own lawyer. Ultimately, that
attorney submitted a bill for $807,421.22 in fees and costs. The insurance
company balked, noting that it had offered to provide counsel. The trial court
agreed, and now, so has the Court of Appeal.
A Sacramento County Superior Court jury awarded the woman’s
husband and other plaintiffs a total of $16.57 million, largely in punitive
damages.
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