According to various sources, Twilight star Taylor Lautner, who apparently plays a werewolf or something like that, has refused an offer to settle a pending lawsuit by means of a contest to see who can do more push-ups.
First of all, I don't know how I missed the news last week that the werewolf had filed a lawsuit against an RV dealership, alleging that he suffered "displeasure, annoyance and emotional distress" when it failed to deliver the $300,000 trailer he ordered to the set of his new movie. According to the complaint, McMahon's RV promised to deliver said RV not later than June 21, but failed to do so.
Plaintiff alleged he therefore lost $3,000 a week that the filmmakers had agreed to pay him as compensation for getting his own RV (so they wouldn't have to rent one), but also that the absence of the requested RV, "which was preferable to any rented substitute RV," caused the aforesaid emotional distress. The complaint also included a demand for punitive damages, alleging that McMahon's had withheld the super-special trailer "with reckless disregard for Plaintiff's interests" and that its conduct in doing so was "fraudulent, oppressive and malicious."
On Monday the 30th, Brent McMahon, owner of McMahon's RV, proposed that the matter be settled by means of a push-up contest. McMahon said that if the werewolf won, he would pay the $40,000 allegedly being demanded to settle the case; but if McMahon won, he would donate the money to Children's Hospital of Orange County.
That sounds like a great idea to me, but the werewolf's camp rejected the idea immediately. "McMahon RV's response to our client's legitimate claim," an attorney declared in an all-too-attorney-like statement, "demonstrates the lack of professionalism that Mr. McMahon, his company and his employees have exhibited from the outset, and that compelled the filing of this lawsuit in the first place." The push-up contest was simply a "facetious suggestion," he said, and maybe it was, but it is also an awesome suggestion and seems to me like a perfectly good way to settle a lawsuit. The parties can agree to whatever they want, it seems to me, so why not throw down, werewolf?
Almost certainly they will settle one way or another, because the lawyer's statement also said that a settlement might be possible if McMahon would donate the $40,000 to a charity of the werewolf's choosing. That makes me wonder what exactly they have against Children's Hospital of Orange County, but if the only difference between the parties' positions is who gets to pick the charity, the case ought to settle quickly.
That might be a good idea, at least for McMahon, because he probably wants to resolve this in the next three weeks, before the next full moon on September 23. (Coincidentally or not, the lawsuit was filed just before the last full moon.) It will probably be much more difficult to negotiate with the other side then, either because the plaintiff will have changed into a ravenous and brutal monster, or because he is a big whiny baby who tends to throw tantrums at that time of the month.
