And indeed nothing is impossible; the most incredible, absurd things will help convince you of this. court decisions. Recently they came up with the Stella Award, the award was named in honor of Stella Liebeck, the fact is that through her own fault she managed to scald herself with coffee at a McDonald's diner, but incredibly was able to sue the McDonald's company for $2.9 million. And of course, this prize is awarded to the winners of the most incredible, absurd court decisions. And now let's look at simply incredible cases when simple people become very rich because of absurd court decisions.
Betty Bullock from California won a lawsuit against Philip Morris. The thing is that she smoked Philip Morris cigarettes for 47 years. As a result of such a 47-year smoking process, Mrs. Bullock was diagnosed with lung cancer, and by a court decision, the Philip Morris company paid her compensation in the amount of $750,000 for material damage, and also $100,000 “for suffering” and as much as $28 million. the fine itself.
Kathleen Robertson, from Austin, Texas. The trial took place in the winter of 2000. There was a judgment that made her $780,000 richer, but for what? Kathleen was awarded this pile of money for a broken ankle, an injury she received in furniture store. This happened because a child running next to her crashed into her. And the most perplexed by such a court decision was the owner of the salon, because the child who crashed into Mrs. Robertson, and because of whom he had to pay such a sum of money, was own child Kathleen Robertson.
In the fall of 1998, an equally ridiculous court decision was made in Pennsylvania. Once, one thief, when leaving the house he had just robbed, through the garage, slammed the door to the house behind him. And it so happened that, due to a malfunction, he was unable to open the automatic door in the garage. As a result, the miraculous robber found himself locked in the garage; he survived thanks to dry dog food and a package of Pepsi, accidentally forgotten by someone. After his release, the resourceful thief thought of filing a lawsuit against the owner of the house because of the enormous psychological trauma he received. As a result of such an “industrial” injury... $500,000, which he sued from the owner of the house he robbed.
In Philadelphia, in the winter of 1997, a certain restaurant paid compensation of $113,500 to Amber Carson from Pennsylvania. The thing is that a woman slipped on a drink spilled on the floor and fell, breaking her tailbone. The most interesting thing is that this drink ended up on the floor because of Miss Carson herself. 30 seconds before the fall, she threw a glass at her boyfriend.
Back in the winter of 1997, Kara Walton, who lives in Claymont, Delaware, won a lawsuit against the owners of a nightclub. The girl, while trying to escape from the club, through the window in the restroom, so as not to pay 3.5 dollars for the alcohol she drank, fell, knocking out her two front teeth. For this she received about... $50,000.
In the summer of 1998, 19-year-old Carl Trumham, living in Los Angeles, managed to win 74,000 by court decision. dollars and full compensation for treatment as a result of the collision. Karl's neighbor simply drove over his hand in his Honda Accord. At this time, Mr. Truman himself was diligently unscrewing the rims from his neighbor’s car, and, apparently, he was so carried away by the process that he did not notice how the neighbor got into the car and drove off.
And such incredible, absurd court decisions are not new, for example, in 1474, the accused... a rooster, who was accused of hooliganism and witchcraft, was brought before the Swedish court. As it happened, he laid an egg, which not only surprised and saddened the public, but also terrified him. And without hesitation he was sentenced to death and “safely” burned along with the egg.
But there is no limit to human “wisdom”. And so in 1540 in Spain, in the court of the town of Guimaran, a case of terrible damage to an outrageously expensive tapestry, indecently brazen... PRAY was heard. The damage was estimated at 10,000 maravedis. And here is the court decision... the insect was found guilty and sentenced to beheaded and... what is no less interesting, all the relatives of the criminal moth were forced to leave the kingdom forever. Apparently, the moths throughout the kingdom had to be imbued with and realize the tragedy of what had happened and immediately leave the kingdom.
Simply unimaginable claims often end up in the courts, and during the process one has to answer very tricky questions. In Britain, such cases are not unusual, but local newspaper The Times was able to identify 20 of the most surprising cases in the history of the entire judicial system. As we see, people like to defend their rights, even the most incredible ones, not only in England and America.
1. In 2004, a resident of the town of Fond du Lac, in the US state of Wisconsin, sued one of the television companies. Timothée Dumouchel accused her of making his wife fat and his children lazy and only able to change channels due to television. The American said: “I think I drink and smoke every day, and my wife is overweight precisely because we have been watching TV every day for the last four years.” In America at that time there were more than a million lawyers, naturally, there were a couple of them who took up this unusual case. However, the case never reached the Supreme Court.
2. Unusual hearings took place in 2005 in Brazil. There, a 31-year-old resident of the town of Jundiai filed a lawsuit against her lover. The reason for the lawsuit was the fact that the man does not provide her with orgasm. In the statement, the woman indicated that her 38-year-old partner ends his sexual intercourse before she reaches the heights of pleasure. Although the high-profile case started quite promisingly, the woman received unpleasant news in court - the court refused to accept the case for consideration.
3. In 2004, in Germany, lawyer Jurgen Graef got an extremely strange case. He had to defend the interests of an old pensioner from the town of St. Augustine, not far from Bonn. The tax office ordered the woman to pay taxes in the amount of 287 million euros, despite the fact that her annual income was 17 thousand euros. The problem was solved by Gref quite quickly - he wrote only one standard letter to government agencies. But the laws of the country allow the lawyer to obtain payment of fees based on a reduction in the amount of the claim. So the enterprising lawyer issued a bill for 440 thousand euros. However, this fee was paid for by the state itself. History is silent whether Gref wrote a letter of thanks to the tax authorities.
4. In 1972, an unusual case was also heard at the Yorkshire Wakefield court. Reginald Sedgwick was accused of stealing... Cleckheaton railway station! The defendant was the head of the company that acted as the contractor for the demolition of the buildings. It was she who, for illegal purposes, destroyed an abandoned and abandoned station building, removing 24 tons of rubble from this place. Sedguik admitted to the crime he had committed, explaining that he acted on the orders of a certain third party, who could not be identified. However, the defendant had an excellent lawyer who easily defeated the prosecution’s arguments and got the court to acquit his subordinate.
5. In 2005, the Massachusetts Court of Appeal held a hearing in which it was necessary to find out whether a certain position during sexual intercourse was dangerous. One morning, a man and woman, long-term sexual partners, made consensual love. In the midst of sexual intercourse, the woman suddenly turned around in such a way, without asking her partner’s permission, that he suffered an injury to his genital organ. As a result, even the intervention of a surgeon was required. The court decided that careless actions during sexual activity can be accepted as grounds for prosecution, but simple negligence cannot serve as such a ground. As a result, the man's claim was rejected.
6. In 2005, NASA received a lawsuit from Russian astrologer Marina Bai. The woman demanded compensation of $200 million because the agency had disrupted the natural balance of power in the Universe. She claimed that NASA had literally committed an act of terrorism with its launch of the Deep Impact space probe. The fact is that the device was supposed to collide with a comet and take samples of the substance after the explosion. One of the Moscow courts decided that the case fell within the jurisdiction of Russia, and even hearings were held on this case. But in the end the claim was rejected.
7. India has not been spared the wave of strange lawsuits. There, in 2007, a local court had to figure out what a vibrating condom was - a “sex toy” or a means of contraception. Such unusual devices are equipped with a battery-powered mechanism and are produced under the Crezendo brand. However, not everyone liked the idea; the fact is that there were experts who claimed that it was mainly a sex toy, but their sales are prohibited in the country! The manufacturer insisted that the main function of the products is contraception and public health.
8. One young resident of Jiaxing city near Shanghai got into trouble with the law in 2006. The fact is that the guy, without first consulting with lawyers, put his soul up for auction at one of the online auctions. As a result, the lot was prudently withdrawn from auction by the site administration itself, and the seller was told that the application for sale would be restored only if permission to sell the soul was given by a “higher authority.”
9. In 2004, the city administration of New York was sued by Frank D'Alessandro, a court official. The fact is that he received serious injuries after his toilet suddenly exploded, instantly turning into a pile of rubble. The man demanded as much as 5 million dollars in compensation. Frank is forced every morning to perform a whole difficult set of physical therapy exercises, about which he simply says: “It’s just some kind of hemorrhoids.”
10. In 2006, the Nevada Supreme Court had to confirm the legality of one of the regulations once passed in Las Vegas. There, strippers are prohibited from fondling their clients while they perform a private lap dance. The lawsuit said the local law was too vague to be enforceable. The controversy was caused by the following unclear phrase: “no assistant or service provider has the right to caress or stroke any client with the intent to cause sexual arousal in him.” Lawyers, with their characteristic meticulousness, found out whether the rubbing of a dancer’s buttocks on a man’s knees was caress or just stroking. Is the law broken if a girl's breasts touch the client's face? As a result, the court upheld the ruling. The verdict stated that law enforcement officers would be able to determine caressing or stroking based on personal experience. This was reminiscent of the famous case when the judge at the hearing said that he could distinguish pornography from erotica only by seeing it.
11. In 1964, the Court of Appeal of Canada was concerned, among other things, with determining whether an amount for operating expenses could be deducted from the expenses of a call girl agency for income tax purposes. The owner of the establishment and seven of her employees, who were actually the same call girls, were eventually brought to justice and found guilty by the court. As a result, the culprits were even sentenced to prison and ordered to pay taxes. As a result, the girls were allowed to spend money on ordinary business services, such as utility bills, from the total amount. But all other expense items had to be crossed out, since the agency was unable to provide any receipts. These included an amount of $2,000 allegedly spent on alcohol for local government officials or $1,000 paid to “several men who have a large physical strength and dexterous enough to help the girl out of a difficult situation." That’s exactly what the expense items said. So, dubious expenses were not taken into account, and taxes had to be paid on them.
12. In November 1884, the rather scandalous case of Captain Thomas Dudley and a certain Edwin Stephens was dealt with. The men were accused of killing cabin boy Richard Parker. They sailed together on a ship from Southampton to Sydney and after a shipwreck they found themselves in the same boat 1,600 miles from the nearest piece of land. To survive, after 3 weeks of drifting, Stephens and Dudley were forced to kill Parker, who was sleeping at that time. They ate the unfortunate man's liver and drank blood instead of water. But just 4 days later, the sailors were picked up by a German ship. Exeter City Court found the men guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced them to death. The cannibals tried to justify their actions by extreme need in order to preserve their own lives, the authorities eventually considered such arguments to be quite legitimate, and a decision was immediately made to spare them. As a result, the unfortunates escaped with six months in prison.
13. Once on radio Buxton there was a live drawing of a Renault Clio car. The main prize with a dose of indescribable joy went to 26-year-old Katie McGowan. After all, she was the one who answered all the quiz questions correctly. Imagine her despair when, in the radio station studio, she was handed only a 4-inch-high model of a car. The woman decided to seek justice and sued the radio in 2001. A Derby judge ruled that the radio station had entered into a legal contract with the listener, and therefore its owners were obliged to pay the plaintiff £8,000 to buy her a real car. Now the radio station has ceased to exist.
14. In Romania in 2005, a lawsuit was filed against... God. Prisoner Mircea Pavel, sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder, filed a lawsuit against the Almighty, accusing him of violating the terms of the contract. The plaintiff stated that when he was baptized into Christianity, an agreement was concluded between him and God. According to it, the Almighty, in exchange for payments in the form of prayers, had to protect Mircea from various troubles. The criminal directly accused God of fraud, breach of trust, corruption and use of administrative resources. Since the defendant himself lives in heaven, he should have been represented by the Orthodox Church. But the court rejected Paul's claims on the grounds that God is not an object of law and has no domicile.
15. In May 2004, a hearing took place in Connecticut in what turned out to be an unusual case. A certain Hester Specialski was accused of killing Neil Esosito. The prosecution alleged that the man was thrown from the car Hester was driving when vehicle lost control and crashed. In her defense, the defendant argued that she could not have been driving, since she was in the passenger seat at the time of the accident, having oral sex with Esposito, who was driving the car. Although the man was found with his pants down, the prosecution believed that he could simply have been showing his buttocks out the window or even urinating while in the passenger seat. As a result, the jury found Spesialski not guilty of the charge of negligent homicide attributed to her. If proven guilty, she could go to jail for 25 years.
17. In the 19th century it happened that judges judged themselves. Thus, in 1874, Francis Evans Cornish, an acting magistrate in Winnipeg, Canada, was considering the case of his own drunken appearance in public place. The honest judge pleaded guilty, fined him $5 and ordered him to pay court costs. True, he immediately ordered the following to be entered into the protocol: “Francis Evans Cornish! Considering that you have behaved decently in the past, the fine is cancelled.”
18. In 1980, an interesting decision was made in the UK Court of Appeal concerning the intimate life of citizens. Lord Justice Dunne, Lord Justice Ormrod and Justice Arnold, in the case of the Basingstoke woman, decided that she was entitled to ration her sexual relations with my spouse. The lady did not agree to make love to her husband more than once a week. After the announcement of such a verdict, curious journalists tried to interview the wives of all the judges who heard this unusual case with comments.
19. One Chinese man asked the court to name his son "@". However, this request was denied because there is a law that children must have names that can be translated into Mandarin.
20. In September 2004, Judge Patabendinge of Sri Lanka sentenced a man to a year in prison for contempt of court. The victim, named Ajit, was a defendant during the hearing, but during the hearing he stretched and yawned, which was immediately noted by the judge. He immediately became furious and passed such a sentence.
Photo from portalpk.ru
On April 1, April Fool's Day was celebrated all over the world. We asked lawyers to recall funny decisions Russian ships, as well as surprising and funny, in their opinion, situations from the boardrooms. As a result, the selection included stories about a lawsuit to recognize the “absolute rightness” of Valery Zorkin, 6 million sheets of documentation, “legal doctrine” personally from Dmitry Medvedev, and much more.
Legal work is not that funny, but there is a place for humor in it, he says Pavel Katkov, senior partner of the law firm "", but immediately adds: “Although it is specific, of course.” Let's start with the April Fool's story (in every sense) that was told at the interview Valery Narezhny, advisor « »: " I can’t say for sure that it took place, but if it’s a story, it’s quite realistic.”
Winter 2010-2011 in Ivanteevka (a city in the Moscow region), municipal services did a very poor job of removing snow. The lawyer living there got tired of it, and in December he filed a lawsuit against the local management company with a request to oblige her to clear the sidewalks of snow. The judge scheduled the first hearing for the end of February, then postponed it twice, and in April she decided to reject the claim. The motive is that the defendant can no longer fulfill the demands due to changes in weather conditions.
It is difficult to confirm such stories, but for those who are especially distrustful, we have arbitration disputes. Where everything can be found on the website "Arbitration Case Files". Well, or almost everything. The only exception may be cases like the one that Valery Narezhny also reminded us of (he called it “the most famous and curious technical error of the court at the highest level”).
We are talking about a dispute between AstrakhanPassengerTrans OJSC and the tax authority (No. A06-5208/2008), which in October 2009 was to be considered by the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation. When representatives of AstrakhanPassengerTrans went to the website of the Supreme Court a week before the meeting to download the ruling on the consideration of the case, it turned out that instead of it there had already been posted ready text resolution in which the applicant of the supervisory complaint denied. The motivation was fully described and all members of the Presidium were listed. Empty place remained only in those places where the names of the representatives of the parties should have been. Cm. " ".
“Apparently, there was an inattentiveness of a specialist from the Supreme Arbitration Court, who, instead of a file with the text of the ruling on assigning the case for consideration, posted on the website a pre-prepared “fish” of the court decision,” suggests Narezhny. Judge-reporter Marina Zorina then recused herself. However, the case was still considered, and the decision made was exactly the same as in the “fish” published by chance.
We want incredible things!
YOU have already corrected the “technical error”, but in the vastness of the Ring Road there are many other interesting things that they are not going to correct. For example, the most “brilliant” thing, according to Viktor Gerbutov,partner, head of dispute resolution practice, - this is the determination of the Volgograd Region AS dated October 19, 2009 (case No. A12-21010/2009). There, the plaintiff's demands attract attention. Here is how the court itself describes them in its definition:
"LLC Stanovskoye appealed to statement of claim, in which the Arbitration Court of the Volgograd Region requests do the incredible» . And the “incredible” lies, in particular, in the following:
- “to oblige the defendant, the Russian Federation, to comply with the requirements of its own legislation”;
- “to admit that Russia is not a rule-of-law state...”;
- “to admit that on October 29, 2004, the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Valery Zorkin was absolutely right in his public speech”. (The following are explanations of what exactly Zorkin was right about). “If we engage in pure security, deny the obvious, insist on our infallibility-quantity can develop into quality. And we can essentially lose not only the remnants of legal authority, but also legal personality as such. And at the same time, overall sovereignty as a whole...”- the words of the chairman of the Constitutional Court are quoted in the definition.
Holy spring
You can learn a lot from the acts of arbitration courts and about the sources of law.
For example, from the decision of the AS of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region of 2008 (No. A56-6546/2008). This is another case from the “archive of curiosities” of Viktor Gerbutov. The dispute concerned the problems of compulsory motor liability insurance, and the court “in choosing the principles of [its] consideration” was guided "legal doctrine" of the President of the Russian Federation(then Dmitry Medvedev). The president formulated it, as follows from the court decision, at a ceremonial meeting in honor of the 85th anniversary of the creation of the Supreme Court. There Medvedev mentioned that " “legal nihilism is a powerful obstacle to the development of our state,” “disrespect for the law does not appear on its own,” and “legal culture directly depends on the quality of law and the quality of law enforcement government agencies and officials".
And in 2015, in the case of recognition of property rights No. A32-25579/2014, which she told us about Anna Zabrotskaya, Advisor and Head of Dispute Resolution Practice, St. Petersburg Office "", the AC of the Krasnodar Territory referred in its decision to Justinian's Digests. Here's what it says verbatim:
“The priority of the interests of the land owner and the service role of canals was emphasized in Roman law. Thus, in Justinian’s Digests it is stated that “the benefit of the one who drains the water should be taken into account only in the absence of damage to the one who owns the field,” “a canal cannot from open to become underground, since this deprives the owner of the land of the benefit from watering livestock and drawing water" (Digests. Book forty-three. Title XXI. 2, 3 // Property rights to land in selected fragments from Justinian’s Digest. M.: Statute, 2006. P. 615)".
Restaurant, light snacks... tights
However, reality itself often provides judges with non-standard topics for “resolution” (and reflection): everything that needs to be analyzed.
For example, says Gerbutov, back in 2002, the cassation of the North-Western District considered a rental dispute (No. A56-28425/01) about which improvements could be recognized as separable and which could not. The following verdict was returned: “The cassation court believes that of all the above, only sinks with stands and toilets with tanks are separable improvements, since their dismantling cannot affect the condition of the room in which they are installed. This is confirmed by the examination reports...”
In 2007, the capital's arbitration courts examined an “invitation to a VIP restaurant” (No. 09AP-11892/2007-AK) in a tax dispute. The applicant argued that there was no value in it (except for the price of the paper). “What has legal significance is not the invitation itself as an object of the material world (a piece of paper), but the rights that [it] provides”, - stated in the act of first instance. The appeal agreed: "…invitation<…>includes the right of a person to consume snacks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. The applicant transferred this property right to receive service in a VIP restaurant to his clients free of charge, therefore the tax authority came to a reasonable conclusion that there was an object of VAT taxation.”.
According to lawyers from "", in one dispute with the tax authority they represented a restaurant operator Catering. The tax authorities refused to recognize expenses for the purchase of tights for waitresses. Her position was that tights are not part of the uniform. The case continued until it became clear that tax office employees were also given tights as uniform uniforms.
The main thing is participation
Often the “blanket” is pulled over by the participants in the process, who themselves become the main characters of funny situations. Here is another example from the experience of Pepeliaev Group:
Or the bankruptcy case No. A19-3409/2014, well-known in legal circles. There, Viktor Petrov, a participant in the dispute, attracted attention. From the ruling of the Court of Justice of the Irkutsk Region dated September 29, 2015, the text of his complaint addressed to the chairman of the court Batraz Aldatov about speeding up the proceedings became known. Its content, apparently, so impressed judge Marina Chigrinskaya that Petrov was fined (2,500 rubles) for “undermining the authority of justice.” As its definition says, Petrov " allowed expressions and phrases that contradict not only the norms of the Russian literary language, but also generally accepted norms of etiquette and morality".
It will be difficult to retell the complaint without losing its “artistic form,” so here are some quotes from it [author’s spelling preserved]:
On 06/17/2015, there was already a complaint about red tape addressed to the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation V.M. Lebedev, where, in order to speed up the time for consideration of the application, they asked for “gesheft” for the chairman of the court Aldatov Batraz, who is silent on complaints in writing and according to statements is barely almost speeds up, “his hands are full.”
Thus, we understand little or little that from 06/15/2015 to 07/29/2015 Judge Marina Chigrynskaya was spinning the dynamo, and then on 07/30/2015 she was spinning the propeller, and we all flew away not for 10 days, but until 09/09/2015.
Moreover, according to the statement dated 06/25/2015, the chairman also barely accelerated, remained on the handbrake, and we are again stuck on the case until 09/09/2015.
Based on the above 1. I ask the chairman of the court Aldatov Batraz (like in the movie the hero - Kamander V.I. Chapaev in a papakha and a burka back and forth on pineapples and bananas) to clearly depict to Judge Marina Chigrinskaya the deadline for postponing court proceedings on the grounds of paragraph 5 of the article 158 Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation<...>
<...>I ask the chairman of the court, Aldatov Batraz, taking into account the repeated applications for acceleration in case No. A19-3409/2014, to speed up a little or hurry up on the basis of part 6 of article 6.1. Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation alone or in duo with a judge.
<...>I ask Chairman Aldatov Batraz, in case of another refusal, to personally head the consideration of case No. A19-3409/2014, so that everyone can see this and everyone will envy us
Every time we mention this or that criminal case, we say that the court will decide whether a person is guilty or not, the court will impose a punishment, the court will sort it out. But sometimes Themis makes decisions that, according to the law, have a right to exist, but from the point of view of common sense are completely incomprehensible. In our country, people are not imprisoned for murder, but for stealing a bottle of vodka they are sent to a colony. We have made a selection of the most strange, absurd and unfair verdicts of local courts.
If you're an employee, it's not so scary.
Just the other day, the Supreme Court of Karelia changed the sentence of the son of the head of the ninth colony, Alexander Gavrilenko, who, while working as a policeman, took bribes from casino owners. Initially, Gavrilenko was sentenced to 5 years in prison in a maximum security colony and a fine of 200 million rubles. The appellate court reviewed this decision and... not only reduced his fine to 29 million, but also released him from custody “immediately.”
According to investigators, in 2011-2013, the son of the head of the famous “nine”, together with his colleagues, received a reward almost every month for informing the organizers gambling in Petrozavodsk, the exact dates and times of inspections of their activities so that they have the opportunity to hide slot machines prohibited for use. Gratitude for the help reached 140 thousand rubles. According to law enforcement In total, Gavrilenko “earned” millions from his talkativeness.
At the same time, Andrei Bukalev, associate professor of the medical faculty of Petrozavodsk State University, served his sentence; he was sentenced to two years in prison in a general regime colony for a bribe of 16 thousand rubles. According to the investigation, the teacher received money from students for passing the exam.
Life or a bottle of vodka
In December last year, the former head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Karelia for Belomorsk, Alexander Zyomenko, was found guilty of the death of 17-year-old Stepan Ruden: while driving a Volkswagen pickup truck, when making a left turn, the investigator did not give priority in traffic and collided with a moped moving in the oncoming direction. direction. Stepan lay in a coma for several months and died without ever regaining consciousness. What about the investigator? The court sentenced the former law enforcement officer to 3 years of suspended imprisonment (!), and the Supreme Court of Karelia did not tighten this punishment. This is despite the fact that the investigator never admitted his guilt, and did not even apologize to Stepan’s parents.
In February 2007, the Petrozavodsk City Court sentenced a policeman who, while intoxicated, hit three people with his car. Senior detective of the criminal investigation department of the North-Western Department of Internal Affairs for Transport, Vitaly Makkoev, while driving a Volga official car while intoxicated, drove at excessive speed and hit a woman with two grandchildren at a pedestrian crossing. As a result of the accident, a five-year-old boy was seriously injured, his grandmother and seven-year-old sister received moderate injuries. The law enforcement officer was sentenced to one year of suspended imprisonment.
In January of this year, former policeman Alexander Serov, who hit two 17-year-old schoolchildren on a motorcycle, received only a suspended sentence of one and a half years. This happened in May 2014. That day, a drunk policeman in a Nissan, trying to make a left turn, missed the motorcycle. The motorcyclist crashed into the left front fender of the crossover. As a result, teenagers with fractures and concussions were sent to the hospital. Due to the accident, they were unable to take their final exams.
But in February, the same court sentenced a man who stole a bottle of vodka from a store to two years and one month in a maximum security colony. And a month earlier, the Petrozavodsk City Court sent to prison for two years a 29-year-old young man who stole a bottle of beer from a store. Well, in May last year, a man who stole a piece of cheese from the Lentorg store and, while running away, hit a policeman, received 6 years and 1 month in a maximum security colony.
Ketamine is more valuable than life
In February 2012, a verdict was handed down that shocked the whole country - Honored Doctor of Karelia, anesthesiologist Elvira Gapkovskaya was sentenced to 6 years for theft of 4 rubles 72 kopecks. The punishment, however, was suspended, despite the fact that the prosecutor asked to place Gapkovskaya in a maximum security colony. Let us remember that the culprit of this celebration of Themis was an uncastrated cat. In December 2010, during another operation in the Petrozavodsk maternity hospital, after the patient was given anesthesia, a little ketamine remained in the syringe, which anesthesiologist Elvira Gapkovskaya decided to leave for castration of her colleague’s cat (at the request of the colleague herself, of course). She told the nurse not to throw away the syringe, and the woman left it, carefully wrapping it in a napkin and signing it: “Ketamine for the cat.” A month later, drug control showed up at the maternity hospital. Together with Gapkovskaya, a nurse was also put under investigation, with whom, according to investigators, the anesthesiologist had a preliminary conspiracy to steal a psychotropic drug. The examination established that the syringe contained 0.036 grams of ketamine worth 4 rubles 72 kopecks. But the Petrozavodsk court decided not to take into account either this ridiculous price, or the lack of self-interest in the actions of the doctors, or the fact that the medicine was intended for a cat and no harm was caused to anyone. Both women received suspended, but long sentences. Fortunately, a month later the Supreme Court of Karelia overturned this truly absurd verdict.
Against the backdrop of the original verdict against Elvira Gapkovskaya, the verdicts against doctors whose actions led to the death of patients seem very strange. So, in 2010, the same Petrozavodsk City Court sentenced the operating nurse of the gynecological hospital of the maternity hospital. Gutkin to Nadezhda Kostyukova. A woman was found guilty of leaving a towel in a patient's stomach. The tragedy occurred in December 2008. During a surgical operation performed on a 33-year-old woman, the mother of three minor children, the operating nurse did not ensure strict accounting of auxiliary surgical materials and informed the surgeon about the coincidence of the number of products used before and after the operation. As a result, a foreign body, a towel, left in the patient’s abdominal cavity was not detected in a timely manner. Due to postoperative complications that arose for this reason, the woman died in May 2009. The court sentenced Kostyukova to one year of suspended imprisonment.
An endoscopist from the Petrozavodsk Emergency Hospital received one year of restriction (!) of freedom in February 2012 medical care, due to which the patient also died. As established in court, in August 2011, during a fibrogastroduodenoscopy procedure, the accused gave orders to the nurse assisting him to close the valve on the device through which the unconscious patient received an oxygen-air mixture for breathing. As a result, gas began to accumulate in the patient’s lungs, she suffered barotrauma and died.
In March 2006, the Segezha City Court sentenced doctor Viktor Shevchenko, who was found guilty of the death of a 4-year-old patient, to 1 year 10 months of suspended imprisonment. According to investigators, the girl was taken to the hospital with a fracture of the right humerus with displaced fragments. The doctor knew that with such injuries there is a high risk of developing hand compression syndrome with a plaster cast, associated with an increase in edema, and therefore dynamic monitoring of the patient in a hospital setting is necessary. However, despite the severity of the injury, the doctor unreasonably early discharged the young patient for outpatient treatment on the same day. The next day, a pediatric surgeon at a local clinic noted a deterioration in the child’s condition, and the girl was urgently sent for examination to a district hospital. However, Shevchenko’s doctor again unreasonably refused to admit her to hospitalization. Soon the girl died. The cause of death was traumatic toxicosis, which developed as a result of compression right hand plaster splint.
In October last year, a surgeon from Kemi, due to whose fault a 15-year-old patient died, was also given a suspended sentence of two years. The young man was brought to the railway hospital after an accident. Knowing about the patient’s abdominal injury, for some reason the doctor did not conduct a full examination of the condition of the abdominal organs. The correct diagnosis (the young man had a liver injury with a rupture) was made only more than 4 hours after a significant deterioration in the patient’s health. The operation did not lead to a positive result, and the young man died in the hospital.
Monument
In July 2014, the trial of the mayor of Suoyarvi, Andrei Lapin, ended. FSB authorities detained him while receiving 55 thousand rubles from a local businessman. The mayor claimed that he asked for this money for the construction of an obelisk, which he wanted to erect in memory of the natives of the Suoyarvi region who died during the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. This version was confirmed by a number of witness statements and a sketch of the monument provided to the court. It should be noted that Lapin was considered the people's mayor in the city. In the past, a driver of a timber truck and a children's hockey coach, he was remembered by the townspeople for the fact that, having become mayor, he did not move into the apartment provided to him, but gave it to the family of fire victims. The attempt to erect a monument to him was not forgiven. Lapin received 3 years of actual imprisonment and a fine of 5 million rubles.
And a previously convicted resident of the Lakhdenpokh district, who raped a 12-year-old girl, will spend just a year more in prison. His sentence was announced in February 2014. In June 2013, another resident of Lakhdenpokhya received the same 4 years for raping and threatening to kill an orphanage inmate.
An excavator is no match for an airplane
In February 2015, the Petrozavodsk City Court sentenced a man who stole an excavator and drowned it in a swamp. As follows from the case materials, the convict worked as an excavator operator in one of the companies and, by verbal agreement, guarded the company’s special equipment, and in April 2014 he got drunk and drove the excavator out of the parking lot. Subsequently, an excavator drowned in a swamp with a drunk driver was discovered by police approximately 500 meters from the base. The man was imprisoned for one year. He will spend this time in a colony settlement.
And in general they did not imprison Major General Kanamat Botashev, who destroyed an airplane worth 100 million rubles and whose actions only miraculously did not lead to a terrible tragedy. According to the investigation, in June 2012, Botashev led tactical flight exercises in Karelia. One day, without undergoing training and without permission to fly on the Su-27, the major general for some reason decided to take part in an aerial weather reconnaissance flight. Initially, the one who was supposed to be at the controls of the plane was Colonel Evgeniy Oleinik. However, once in the sky, Kanamat Botashev took control of the Su-27 and began performing aerobatic maneuvers. The general decided to try to perform the figure that caused the plane to crash for the first time that day.
