In yet another “swoon and fall” case against a church, an Illinois woman claims she was injured during a church service when a parishioner who was receiving the “spirit” fell backward, knocking several other worshippers into her.

Cheryl Jones' lawsuit describes a chain reaction of worshippers toppling like dominos, caused, she says, by the failure of the Disciple Fellowship Christian Church of East St. Louis to provide ushers to catch the swooning parishioner.

“Typically,” the suit says, “two ushers would stand on each side of the [church] member to prevent the person receiving the 'spirit' from falling and injuring themselves.”

But on Jan. 5, 2010, the pastor “gave the 'spirit' without the assistance of anyone” and “as one member received the 'spirit', she fell backwards[,] knocking several other members into Plaintiff[,] who fell to the ground with several people falling on top of her.”

Jones allegedly lost consciousness and suffered injuries to her head, neck, back and buttocks. She is seeking at least $50,000 in damages.

In 2009, the Michigan Court of Appeals said a church had a duty to provide an usher to catch a swooning congregant as she fell backward. But it also stressed that the case had “very narrow and unique circumstances.”

Among other things, the court noted in an unpublished opinion, the pastor had “made it clear to the congregants that ushers were trained to catch persons who fall during an altar call.”.

An Oregon jury last year found a church was not liable for the injuries of a woman who was acting as a “catcher” when a swooning church member fell on her.

Jones' suit would take things a step further than the Michigan and Oregon cases, making a church liable for injuries to a bystander who apparently was waiting her turn to receive the “spirit.” “Defendant owed Plaintiff a duty to ensure a safe place for parishioners to worship on its property,” it says.

Ushers should have been “standing behind the parishioners to catch them if they fell to the floor after the Pastor laid his hands on them,” Jones insists, and parishioners should have been warned of “the potential dangers of receiving the 'spirit.'”

But as Jones says in her complaint, the church would typically provide ushers to “prevent the person receiving the 'spirit'” from being injured — not any and all parishioners who might be in the vicinity of the altar.

And even in the absence of “catchers,” it doesn't seem foreseeable that one parishioner would injure another as a result of a bizarre chain reaction accident.

By Matthew Heller
On Point

The North Carolina courts continue to be receptive to alienation of affections cases (see link below), with a Pitt County judge awarding $5.9 million to a jilted wife. The award to Dr. Lynn Arcara, a radiologist, came only six months after a Guilford County, N.C., jury awarded a record $9 million to Cynthia Shackelford over the loss of her husband to another woman.

The other woman in Arcara's case was one of her closest friends. Susan Pecoraro allegedly began an affair with Arcara's husband when Arcara was pregnant and she visited the couple in their home to help decorate the nursery.

ALIENATED AFFECTIONS

The legal fuss over defectively manufactured Victoria's Secret undergarments appears to be over, with not a single one of more than a dozen product liability cases (see link below) even reaching the discovery stage.

At least five of the cases were class-action variations on the theme that some "chemical, toxin, or allergen" in Victoria's Secret products was causing women to break out in a rash. All those class actions have been dismissed, three of them in January 2010. Looks like those undies might not have been so unsafe, after all.

UNSAFE UNDIES?