In a legal filing that will make your jaw drop faster than a damaged garage door, an Oregon man has decided the best response to getting shot while burglarizing a business is to ask for $10 million. Bold strategy, Kenneth. Bold strategy.
Kenneth Voyles is suing Portland-area Touchstone Granite & Marble Inc. and its owner, James Grant, after being shot multiple times on March 6 — a shooting that occurred, it bears mentioning, *inside the business Voyles had just broken into*. The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County, accuses Grant of battery, assault, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The emotional distress part is doing some truly heroic heavy lifting here.
Voyles, who was experiencing homelessness at the time, claims he entered Touchstone through a conveniently damaged garage door seeking shelter from the elements. He also freely admits he planned to steal something while he was in there — a detail his legal team may want to quietly bury somewhere beneath all that granite and marble.
The lawsuit is seeking a tidy $5 million in compensatory damages plus an additional $5 million in punitive damages, because apparently getting shot several times is worth exactly the same amount whether the business owner was naughty or *really* naughty.
When Voyles eventually exited the building — through the same damaged door he entered, completing what can only be described as the world’s least successful shopping trip — he had acquired significantly more holes than he arrived with and zero merchandise.
To be fair, homelessness is a genuine and serious crisis, and nobody deserves to be shot under any circumstances. But filing a $10 million lawsuit against the people whose business you just burglarized is certainly a legal Hail Mary that would make even the most optimistic attorney pause mid-sip of their morning coffee.
The case continues. We assume both parties will try to keep things civil, which, given the circumstances, may require considerable effort.
Source: The Independent
Original story via Reddit Offbeat
