Now that woman has filed suit against McDonalds and the liquor store across the street from the eatery, arguing that they failed to provide "a reasonably safe place for their customers."
Hmmmm.
Not sure how that's gonna fly, since just about any competent attorney is going to argue she kinda ...*ducking here*.... brought it on herself.
WAIT - let me clarify this before you hit me upside my melon with the hammer of righteous indignation!
I was -and still am - absolutely disgusted with the treatment she received at the hands of this idiot.
But I think someone's gonna argue that once the guy tossed the cheeseburger back in her face, she should have ran, not walked, to her car or the store and gotten the hell outta there before this animal could get his hands on her.
That she antagonized the moron by calling him an "ungrateful bastard" - even tho the guy most certainly was - probably won't help her case.
I absolutely feel for the woman's suffering, no doubt about it, but I'm also very concerned about what this does to the image of the homeless, since that particular image isn't very good in the first place. It doesn't take much to harden hearts further towards those on the street and the behavior of idiots like Mr. Craig have wide-ranging implications, not to mention guilt by association, for all people experiencing homelessness.
I wish I could say that this wasn't true but the fact is, for many people who know nothing at all about people on the street, the memory of this drunken fool beating a kindhearted woman will take center stage whenever they think about homelessness....Woman sues stores, claims homeless man beat her
She says she was attacked after offering a cheeseburger
By Nicole Young • THE TENNESSEAN • April 21, 2009
A Cheatham County woman who said she was beaten after giving a homeless man a cheeseburger outside a Nashville McDonald's last year is suing the restaurant, a nearby liquor store and her alleged attacker.
Fran MacLaren and her husband, Thomas, filed suit in Davidson County Circuit Court on Monday. They are asking for $2 million in damages.
In the criminal assault case against David Craig last April, MacLaren testified that she went to a Nolensville Road McDonald's for lunch on April 21, 2008. The homeless man, Craig, was outside of the fast-food chain after being told to leave a nearby liquor store, named in the suit as Uncle Koto Liquor Store.
MacLaren gave Craig the cheeseburger as he was lying down in a parking spot outside the restaurant. Craig shouted he didn't want the burger, just money and threw the burger at MacLaren, she testified.
"I told him he was an ungrateful bastard,'' she testified.
Craig went after her, she said. He struck her repeatedly, broke her nose, fractured her wrist, cheekbone and cracked a rib, she said. She also injured her knee.
MacLaren limped into the McDonald's but was later locked out of the restaurant.
According to the suit, both husband and wife allege that the McDonald's and the nearby liquor stores, "knew, or should have known, that their mode of operating their particular stores attracted persons prone to criminal acts and provided an environment to crime."
The suit states that both stores failed to provide a reasonably safe place for their customers.
Attempts to contact the owners of the Nolensville Road McDonald's and Uncle Koto Liquor store were unsuccessful.
Contact Nicole Young at 615-259-8091 or nyoung@tennessean.com.
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