Sirgiorgiro Clardy
By GENE HOWINGTON
Not to be confused with the British trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps, Portland based Sirgiorgiro Clardy is a singularly different kind of sneaker pimp. In June of 2012, Clardy beat a john so badly with his Nike Air Jordans (via stomping on his face) that it required stitches and plastic surgery to repair the damage. In addition to that beating, he was also convicted for robbing the john in question and beating the woman he had forced into prostitution until her ears bled. This nets the 26 year old Oregon pimp a 100 year prison sentence that won’t see him eligible for parole for 36 years. The crime in itself is horrible enough. The man himself is horrible enough. A psychologist who interviewed Clardy incident to the trial, Frank Colistro, said Clardy was in “the 100th percentile of narcissistic criminals and he’s 100 percent likely to commit violent crimes again in the next seven years” according to The Oregonian. Noting a three decade career in evaluating criminals, Colistro said, ”I’ve evaluated serial murders, serial rapists, and I’m going to tell you very few of those people reach the elevations (scores) we’re going to talk about here. People like Mr. Clardy are born bad. It’s not something we can fix. …That’s why we have prisons.” Colistro also told the paper that Clardy was the kind of criminal that “thinks of himself as smarter, more attractive and superior than everyone else.” But maybe that explains what happened next. Clardy is now suing Nike.
In a hand written motion, Clardy (who is representing himself) accuses Nike, Chairman Phil Knight and other executives of failing to warn consumers that the shoes could be used as a weapon to cause serious injury or death. The damages sought? A mere $100,000,000. That’s right. One million dollars for every year Clardy received for his crimes. While it should be noted that the theory of liability he is suing under – failure to warn – is a legitimate theory, based on the notion that the product carries inherent non-obvious dangers which could be mitigated through adequate warnings to the user, and these dangers are present regardless of how well the product is manufactured and designed for its intended purpose. If this claim survives long enough to go to trial, Clardy likely faces an uphill battle convincing a judge and/or jury that stomping on someone is a non-obvious danger of shoes worn on the feet, but there you have it. More than likely it won’t survive the surely forthcoming Motion to Dismiss based on a failure to state a claim or controversy. Perhaps a dismissal with prejudice lay in Clardy’s future.
What do you think?
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Gene Howington
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I had to read that twice to make sure the psychologist said “100%” instead of 100th percentile.
For the maffs-challenged, percentiles only go to the 99th. If you are 100%, you are in the 99%ile.
Now tell me again why we can’t sue gun manufactures for distributing a dangerous product in a negligent manner to yahoos?
Blouise,
In short, you can’t sue gun manufacturers because guns are dangerous because they take the appropriate legally insulating steps of proper warnings and guns do what guns are designed to do (overall).
Under product liability, there are three main theories to pursue: negligence, strict liability, breach of warranty, and consumer protection claims. Within those theories, there are three basic types of claim to pursue: manufacturing defect, design defect, a failure to warn. Negligence per se isn’t going to fly, nor is strict liability or breach of warranty. You are left with a consumer protection claim. Under that, manufacturing defect is out unless the gun in question does not perform as designed causing injury, design defect is out unless the gun’s design is in itself faulty and that design error resulted in injury. A failure to warn is a non-starter too. Guns are designed to kill, be they hunting rifles or handguns. Every gun I’ve ever seen bought new comes with more than sufficient warnings as to the inherent dangerous nature of the product as well as appropriate safety instructions.
New gun sales, with the background checks, are less of a problem than the secondary gun market.
Gene & Blouise.
I could not let this discussion go further without sharing the observations of my friend Jim Foreman. Jim is an old glider pilot, and flew the glider towplanes at Black Forest. He is an old cowboy storyteller from way back. He has some observations on self defense that I like.
Note Jim Foreman says to not discloser one’s measures of security taken.
He like I & others always say don’t be the welling victim, be prepared to always defend yourselves & the ones around you.
I had relatives that were in California years back & some ahole came up & tried to get into the vehicle, but they were able to get the doors locked in time. Car Jacking ?
Be like a boy scout & be prepared to act.
For a while I had a real knight stick in the car. But LE told me that was illegal – civilians aren’t allowed to have that. Later, I used to carry a breaker bar in the side panel on the driver side door. It was metal, with pretty good heft, slip resistant knurled grip. I never used it but I did have to explain it to LE a couple of times. Old car like that, you just never know when you might need to make an adjustment with a breaker bar.
This is classic…..
bfm
i keep a five d cell maglite beside my seat. it’s like a short baseball bat with a bulb.
i’ve learned not to think i’m billy badass though. almost got carjacked once. all the i’da and i’mgonna crap goes right out the window.
and what kind of nickle and dime pimp wears tennis shoes?
sport might pimp out 12y/o’s but he at least looks the part. (harvey keitel, taxi driver)
“i’ve learned not to think i’m billy badass though. almost got carjacked once. all the i’da and i’mgonna crap goes right out the window.”
Absolutely agree. Even if you are willing to take the blow, you never know when you are dealing with some maniac who will pull a knife, a gun of kick you in the head. Resistance is for when you have nothing left to loose and no other choice – in my opinion.