Patti LaBelle wins Lawsuit

The court rejected Richard King’s multimillion-dollar claim against Patti LaBelle yesterday.

Hollywood star Patti LaBelle must be feeling quite relaxed by now. She won a three year old lawsuit that was filed against her in 2011. Yesterday, the court decided in favor of the 70-year-old singer.

Actually, Richard King, who is former cadet of West Point military academy, got injured after a clash with LaBelle’s team in 2011 at Bush Intercontinental Airport. On the day of the incident, King came back to Houston after spending his spring vacations at home. 

And Patti LaBelle was going to Louisiana for a concert. King and Patti encountered each other at the Airport. King was totally drunk at that time. And he had a fight with LaBelle’s team that included her son, her hairdresser and her bodyguard.

King got injured as his head hit a concrete pillar during the fight. And this incident was being recorded by airport cameras. King went ahead and filed a claim against LaBelle to pay in terms of the damages he had incurred.

However, the federal jury rejected his claim yesterday. The jury announced their decision in U.S. District Judge Keith Ellisonlate’s courtroom on late Tuesday after weighing the case for more than 10 hours.

Geoffrey Bracken, the lawyer of Patti LaBelle, said that King was out of control besides being drunk and he started the clash first. “He is a grown man. He has certain responsibilities not only to himself but to the public as well,” Bracken told the jury. 

Bracken also presented a bottle of Jack Daniels as a proof to the jury and said that King’s blood alcohol level was 2.8 at the time of the incident. And this level is three times more than the legal limit of blood alcohol.

However, King’s lawyer said that the airport surveillance video clearly shows that LaBelle’s team went after King and started the fight. And King suffered a traumatic brain injury due to which his graduation remained incomplete as he was not being able to attend the classes of the final semester. 

However, the jury thought differently. The jury declared LaBelle’s hairdresser innocent. And the jury also found that LaBelle’s son and bodyguard had to fight with King in self defense. That is why LaBelle is not liable to pay King any damages.

But King’s lawyers were clearly disappointed at this decision.  “I am stunned,” King’s lawyer, John Raley, said after the decision. “I am bewildered. The videotaped evidence was so clear.”

However, Patti LaBelle’s lawyers were happy at this decision. Patti must be happy too as she won the case and she has to pay no compensatory money in terms of damages.