John Freeman sued for $3 million after he fell off a roof at a job site and broke his left arm. Defense attorneys were eager to take Freeman's deposition partly because they had learned he had a history of drug use and suspected Freeman had been on drugs at the time of the fall. They did not, however, get any admissions from him on this topic at his deposition last December.
That was largely because Freeman showed up for the depo completely stoned.
Defense attorneys demanded and got a conference call with Judge Vincent LeBlon (Middlesex County, N.J.), and told the judge that Freeman was slurring his words, "his pupils sometimes rolled backward" and his answers were contradictory. Ironically, although that wouldn't disqualify him from being President it did hurt his case substantially. The judge stopped the deposition and ordered Freeman to go to a hospital for an drug test, but he apparently never complied.
He did show up in court again in January, although he had to appear for some hearings in an orange jumpsuit due to having been arrested (on drug charges) earlier that month. You would think that attire is not likely to make a good impression, but those hearings seem to have gone okay, which is making me wonder why I have to worry about wearing suits to court. I think ties are irritating and on top of that it is very hard to find matching outfits for my helper monkey.
Anyway, on March 10, the judge sanctioned Freeman and ordered him to pay about nine thousand dollars in fees for the six defense attorneys who had attended the depo (a depo that presumably did not take very long, of course). The case was dismissed with prejudice last week after Freeman failed to pay.
Link: Yahoo! News
