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72-Year Old Turns 5 Cents into
Jackpot
The adventures of 72-year old
Stella Romanski begins when she happens across a lone nickel token
in the tray of a slot machine. Then, one trial, a runaway jury,
and an emotionally charged judge later, that nickel turned into a
jackpot.
It cost Stella Romanski and her
pals Dorothy Dombrowski and Linda Holman $9 each for their bus
ride and lunch at Detroit’s MotorCity casino. After eating, the
ladies spent an unsuccessful hour testing their luck at the casino
slot machines. After playing her purse, Stella went on the hunt
for spare change through the casinos rows of slot machines. The
hunt left her five cents richer as she discovered a single nickel
token abandoned by a long gone player.
The next chapter of the story is
where things begin to get very fuzzy. According to Ms. Romanski
she was snatched up by the casino’s intimidating knee breakers,
lead through the labyrinth of the casino’s inner workings, only to
find herself in a cold interrogation room without windows. There,
surrounded by men in uniform, she was accused of stealing from the
casino. They even took her nickel token. According to Judge
Lawrence Zatkoff, apparently very touched by Romanski’s tale of
woe, “Ms. Romanski began to cry at the thought that she, a
grandmother of nine children, could commit a crime.”
When the casino security
testified, under oath, the events were similar, but the story was
drastically different. The scary casino thug that nabbed Ms.
Romanski turned out to be none other than Marlene Brown. At the
time of Ms. Romanski’s confrontation, Ms. Brown, wearing plain
clothes, was the only security officer at the scene. Brown
informed Romanski that under casino policy, any money found in a
slot machine tray is the property of the winning patron and if
that patron does not claim it, it is returned to the casino. That
is apparently when the fragile grandmother of nine decided to
raise her voice, some even described her behavior as
“belligerent.” Browns was caught off guard, “Well, my instinct
was to just tell her and let her just go finish gaming, but like I
said, she was getting kind of loud, and that's when I called
Sky.” Sky is another name for the casino’s bird's-eye-view
surveillance. However, as Romanski insisted upon making a scene,
the casino felt they had no choice but to pull her from the
floor.
From there the stories continue
to split. Poor Ms. Romanski was then banned from the casino,
though they did allow her back in to use the restroom. However
she was forced into the humiliating situation of having a security
officer stand in the stall with her as she relieved herself. Next
came the inhumane hours in the Detroit summer sun as the casino
forced her to take the bus home. Judge Zatkoff, who seemed more
and more entranced by the woman’s story wrote, “after she crossed
Grand River Ave., and negotiated relatively heavy traffic, she
discovered that it was not the proper bus, and that her bus would
not arrive for another two hours.”
Again, the version the casino
security delivered bared slightly less resemblance to Nazi
Germany. During the trial, facts showed that the female security
officer that accompanied Romanski to the bathroom waited outside
of the bathroom stall. Romanski was then escorted to the casino’s
air-conditioned valet area. She then chose to walk outside on her
own accord after bumping into her friends.
The next layer of absurdity was
contributed by Romanski’s lawyer. Neil H. Fink, sues the casino
and it security agents on five counts: defamation, false arrest
and imprisonment, violation of federal civil rights, intentional
infliction of emotional distress, and finally “exemplary
damages.” There is no such thing as a “count” for exemplary
damages. Mr. Fink should have learned this very early in his law
school career. Not to worry, Judge Zatkoff, once again stepping
in on Romanski’s side, restated the complaint for Fink.
After the jury could find no
grounds for intentional infliction of emotional distress or
defamation, the only items that stood were the false arrest and
the violation of civil rights, also know as a §1983 action. This
confined damages to the moment Romanski was confronted by Brown to
the moment she left the interview room.
Keeping in mind a few charges
were dropped, Romanski was granted this modest sum by the jury:
$850,000 in punitive damages, $270 in compensatory damages for
being detained, $9 for her bus trip and lunch, oh yes, don’t
forget, 5 cents for her nickel. All this, without the slightest
bit of evidence that Romanski spent an instant in a doctor’s
office or under psychiatric attention for her “trauma.” The civil
rights claim and the size of the punitive damages is placed on
appeal.
Law states that should a person
be deprived of her federal civil rights while acting under color
of state law, said victim can sue in federal court. Unfortunately
for Fink, there was only the casino’s security agents, no state
officials such as state police or a member of the state gaming
board.
The 6th Circuit Court
of Appeals backed Brown’s actions in a 2-1 decision. Brown’s
actions where “fairly attributed to the state,” being that she was
granted the authority to make arrests on the casino grounds.
The Courts were split on the
issue of whether a security guard and the casino that employs her
can be sued under §1983. So the courts resorted to the “public
function” test. The test examined whether the casino’s private
security guards were functioning as government police officers.
The most important factor in the
test was, seemingly, over looked: the reason for it taking place.
The only way a private security guard can suffer the charges for
state violations of civil rights is if the state appoints the
private serviceman with police power. How many people sincerely
feel the casino security was acting in the interest of the state?
Some how, the court did indeed
come to the conclusion that the security guards were functioning
as state agents. Not only that, their detainment of Ms. Romanski
was considered an arrest and a wrongful, unjust arrest at that.
Actual police officers can make arrests if they have reason to
believe a crime may have been committed, that is called “probable
cause.” In this case, the so called “state agents” were wrong for
even entertaining the notion that the nickel belonged to the
casino.
The Court made its ruling based
on the law of “finders/keepers.” They decided the token was
abandoned and since Ms. Romanski was the first person to come
across it, she had rights above all others to claim it as hers.
He right even overshadows those of the owner of the grounds on
which the object was found.
The $850,000 in punitive damages
was ruled excessive by the courts. $600,000, apparently, sounded
much more reasonable. The figure was drawn from past cases where
victims suffered false convictions, strip searches, or even some
extremes such as being beaten to death.
The Court deemed the huge fine as
a deterrent for the casino. The Court drew an unfitting parallel
between the casino and a case where a pregnant woman was jailed
after being falsely convicted for an incident at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart suffered the very same $600,000 fine. Romanski’s
half-hour in a casino interview room hardly resembles such a
horrible incident and the casino’s pocket book is only a fraction
of the world’s largest retailer’s. The Court blatantly ignored
the fact that an event like this has never happened in the
casino’s history.
Perhaps the biggest oversight is
the disproportionate victory awarded to Romanski and Fink. For
spending thirty minutes in an interview room, she goes home with
$400,000 while her lawyer also gets to pocket a cool $200,000.
Money sure comes easy these
days.
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