The NY Legal Story of the Morning: The Gym Grunter

[WSJ_law_blog]

The New York newspapers discharged a stream of local legal news stories today. Jack Jordan, the Uma Thurman stalker, avoided further jail time with a sentence of three years’ probation. (NYT, NYP) And the Times has a story on Dick Grasso, who today squares off in New York’s highest appellate court with state AG Andrew Cuomo over Grasso’s $180 million pay package.

Worthy stories, both. But, in our humble opinion, neither compare to the gym-grunter.

Can you get away with assaulting somebody who’s annoying? Samuel L. Davis, the lawyer for gym-grunter Stuart Sugarman, believes that yesterday’s acquittal, in a New York court, of Christopher Carter, Sugarman’s attacker, means that you can. For those outside the New York area, Carter, a 45 year-old stock broker faced assault charges for manhandling Sugarman on his stationary bike. After listening to Sugarman yell out “Good burn!” and “You go girl!,” Carter walked over to Sugarman’s bike and lifted it, crashing the back of it into a wall, witnesses said. Mr. Sugarman said the force of the bike dropping to the ground caused a herniated disc in his neck. Sugarman now plans to file a civil suit against Carter and Equinox, the gym where the altercation happened. Here are stories from the NYT and NYP.

How life imitates art, we thought, reading the gym-grunter coverage. Recently, the LB watched a movie called “Noise,” in which Timothy Robbins plays a New York City lawyer unhinged by car alarms, and obsessed with exacting revenge on the car owners whose alarms disturb his sleep. But, unlike Carter, Robbins’ self-appointed vigilante, who goes out at night to disable car alarms and smash storefront windows, is repeatedly sent to jail for his transgressions against his fellow citizens.

LB’ers: What should happen to Carter? And what does the verdict mean for loud people, such as loud cellphone talkers? How about other kinds of perceived inconsiderate city folk, such as parents who permit their children to terrorize sidewalks with Razor s******s?

Photo: iStockPhoto