Plaintiff
A woman whose expensive hearing aids were destroyed after her cousin threw her into a swimming pool against her wishes.
Defendant
Her cousin, who says he didn't know she was wearing hearing aids and now has part of his wages garnished after refusing to pay for the damage.
A family birthday party has turned into a years-long legal battle after one prank ended with thousands of dollars in damage.
The plaintiff says she has never been particularly close to her cousin. While the rest of the family sees him as the fun-loving favorite, she describes him as immature, irresponsible, and someone who constantly takes jokes too far.
She has also struggled with hearing problems for years and recently purchased a new pair of hearing aids that cost around $6,000.
During their grandmother's birthday party, the family was gathered outside near the backyard pool, eating, drinking, and enjoying the celebration.
That's when the defendant decided it would be funny to throw the plaintiff into the pool.
According to the plaintiff, she repeatedly told him to stop and made it clear she wasn't joking. She says her tone was serious and she asked him several times to put her down.
He ignored her and threw her into the water anyway.
When she climbed out of the pool, she realized her hearing aids had been completely ruined.
The plaintiff immediately confronted her cousin and explained what had happened.
His response, according to her, was simple.
He said he didn't know she was wearing hearing aids and admitted it was an accident.
But when she told him the hearing aids cost around $6,000 and asked him to replace them, the conversation quickly changed.
He refused.
The disagreement soon spread through the family.
Instead of supporting the plaintiff, many relatives sided with the defendant.
Their argument wasn't that he shouldn't take responsibility, but that the plaintiff earns significantly more money than the rest of the family. Meanwhile, the defendant was still in college, working at a call center, supporting his girlfriend and their baby, and struggling to make ends meet.
The family believed she should simply absorb the loss.
The plaintiff disagreed.
After the defendant refused to pay for the damage, she took him to court.
She won.
Even after losing the case, the defendant still refused to make payments.
That forced the plaintiff to return to court, where a judge ordered that up to 20% of his wages be garnished until the debt was repaid.
According to the plaintiff, the financial strain became so severe that her cousin had to leave college and work additional hours just to cover rent and support his family.
Now, most of the family blames her for putting the defendant, his girlfriend, and their child in a difficult financial position.
The plaintiff, however, believes her cousin is responsible for every consequence that followed.
She says he ignored her repeated requests to stop, destroyed her expensive medical device, refused to apologize sincerely, and fought every attempt to resolve the matter.
She insists that if he had simply apologized, accepted responsibility, and asked for time to repay her after finishing college, she would have gladly worked with him.
Instead, she says he refused to take accountability at every step.
Now she's wondering if taking the legal route made her the villain—or if her cousin is simply facing the consequences of his own actions.
Questions Before The Court
Should the defendant be fully responsible for replacing the hearing aids?
Was taking the matter to court the right decision?
Should the plaintiff have forgiven the debt because of the defendant's financial situation?
Does the impact on the defendant's child change who is at fault?
Cast Your Vote
The plaintiff argues that this situation was entirely preventable.
She says she repeatedly told her cousin not to throw her into the pool, but he ignored her wishes and did it anyway. As a result, her $6,000 hearing aids, an essential medical device were destroyed.
She believes the issue isn't about money. It's about taking responsibility for the damage he caused.
According to the plaintiff, she was willing to be patient if he had apologized sincerely and worked out a repayment plan. Instead, he refused to pay, forcing her to sue.
From her perspective, every consequence that followed, including the wage garnishment and his financial struggles, stemmed from his refusal to accept responsibility.
The defendant argues that the incident was an accident and that he never intended to damage the plaintiff's hearing aids.
He says he didn't know she was wearing them when he threw her into the pool and was shocked when he learned how expensive they were.
Supporters of the defendant also point out that he was a struggling college student with a young family, while the plaintiff earned significantly more money than anyone else in the family.
They believe taking him to court and later having his wages garnished was unnecessarily harsh because it affected not only him but also his girlfriend and young child.
From their perspective, compassion should have outweighed legal action.
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