Lead Story

New York Newsday reported in April that a
forty-six-year-old Worcester, Mass., man
inexplicably began speaking with a French
accent immediately after he was involved in
an  automobile accident last year. Dr. Majis
Moonis told the annual meeting of the
American  Academy of Neurology that about two
dozen cases of "foreign accent syndrome" have
been  reported in this century, caused by a
change in the brain circuit involved with
motor control that  affects the vocal cords.

The Litigious Society

In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver
dismissed a civil lawsuit by Merrill
Chamberlain, who is serving a life sentence
for the murder of an Albuquerque, N.M.,
police  officer. Chamberlain had sued the
Albuquerque Police Department and the city,
claiming that he  wouldn't have been guilty
of murder if the officer had not allowed him
surreptitiously to gain  access to his
handgun or if the officer had been wearing a
bullet- proof vest.

In April, Scott Abrams, twenty-seven, filed a
$2 million lawsuit against the owners and
managers of an apartment building for
injuries he suffered in 1991 when he was hit
by lightning  while sitting on the roof of
the building during an electrical storm. He
said the defendants were  negligent in
maintaining the rooftop and should have
provided signs and brighter paint, among
other things. When hit, Abrams was sitting on
a ledge on the roof with his feet in a water
puddle;  rescue workers revived him from
cardiac arrest.

In August, Anna Lilienthal, sixty-three,
filed a lawsuit against the city of Simi
Valley, Calif., for  injuries suffered at the
city's Fourth of July celebration when a
skydiver missed his target and  landed on top
of her.

In March, the Wyoming Supreme Court on a
technicality revived Richard Osborn's
lawsuit,  sending back for trial his claim
that a Casper video store defrauded him.
Osborn said he bought  the X-rated BelIe of
the Ball based on a photo on the package
featuring actress Busty Belle, but  later
discovered that Belle was on screen for only
eight or nine of the film's sixty-plus
minutes.  Osborn seeks a refund of the $29.95
purchase price plus $55.79 in reimbursement
for medicine  because he said the stress of
not seeing more of Ms. Belle caused an asthma
attack -- plus  $50,000 for "pain and
suffering."

In February, a federal judge in Washington,
D.C., dismissed a lawsuit filed by a sex
offender  serving time in D.C.'s Lorton
Reformatory. Michael A. Johnson had filed the
lawsuit for  $12,500 because the prison store
had charged him $6 for a $5.80 book of twenty
twenty-  nine-cent stamps.

In February, Kenneth Bruckner of Gering,
Neb., filed a lawsuit against the
Presbyterian/St.  Luke's Medical Center in
Denver, claiming that the cleanser used to
disinfect the toilet seat he  was using was
highly toxic and had caused him permanent
burns, neurologic injuries, and  urologic and
sexual dysfunction. Said Bruckner's attorney,
"What's the world coming to if it's  not safe
to sit on the toilet and read the paper!"



The Weirdo American Community

The New Yorker magazine reported in April
that artist Nancy Rubins's work, appearing at
the  Kasmin gallery on Grand Street,
consisted of a room "nearly filled" with "old
mattresses dotted  with mounds of partially
mashed Entenmann's cakes and suspended a few
inches off the floor."  No other information
about the exhibit was given.

Least Competent Person

Seattle, Wash., police arrested a twenty-
seven- year-old man in April after he
attempted to  deposit a check into his
account at a Washington Mutual Bank office.
According to a teller, he  is the same man
who robbed the branch two days earlier.