Comments on: Football-keeping neighbor sues parents

By: Benji

Benji — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:30:46 +0000

@11: Maybe Jester trips over the ball and the neighbors stiff her on the medical bills. Maybe a burglar fleeing Jester’s home trips over the ball. Maybe the kids discover, in the course of retrieving their ball, that Jester is injured and incapable of phoning for assistance. Maybe the incoming ball enrages a wild bear that kills them all.
I don’t think it’s fair to say the Tanis family deserves to be sued because something MIGHT happen as a result of the ball being there and the Tanis family MIGHT try to dodge responsibility for the outcome.

By: Todd Rogers

Todd Rogers — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:21:55 +0000

…and with that, I now take the number two spot as the most callous participant on this blog. I’ll be back on top before too long.

By: Sharon Watkins

Sharon Watkins — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:22:50 +0000

What would have happened if Ms. Jester had fallen or tripped on the ball? What if she had been hit by it? Would the family have bothered to pay the medical bills? I seriously doubt it, that money would have come out of Medicare. Ms. Tanis’ comments made me laugh, it sounds like she’s trying to say “we didn’t do anything” IMO. It’s a little late for that, you made a big issue over your child’s ball (LOL) and now you’re family is paying for it. My grandmother was 93 when she died, frail but in her right mind and able to get about, had she been subjected to the stress of an arrest and all of this hoopla she would have suffered emotional distress as well. So Ms. Tanis IMO you brought all of this on yourself, and I hope you have to pay the piper in the end.

By: kelly tanis

kelly tanis — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:44:42 +0000

We didn’t have her arrested. We asked for the ball back. We asked to have the charges dropped, and they were for lack of wont of prosecution. It is illegal in Ohio to take something from your own property and refuse to give it back to the rightful owner. No one trespassed on Edna’s property, which is why the ball was there for her to get. No one has seen or talked to Edna since this happened, and we have no idea why she filed this lawsuit. According to people calling in to local stations, she has been making the claim that it distresses her to have children playing in her neighborhood for over thirty years. My husband cut her grass and shoveled her driveway for over six years. The closest thing to trespassing that has occurred most recently was when my husband put tomatoes on her porch and Edna invited him in to sit down with her and talk. He was there for over an hour. That was a week before she took my son’s ball. My son apologized to Edna, nothing more. My husband asked for the ball, and she told him to call our neighborhood liaison officer. He called the dispatch, and she refused to give the ball back and instructed the officers to arrest her. My husband asked that she not be arrested. If you look at articles from the Cincinnati Enquirer, you will find that they did their due dilligence in reporting this situation – they got the transcripts from the police dispatch officer and proved my husband asked the officers to lay off of Edna. Sirkin has been conveniently out of town until this coming Wednesday. Until then, we have no idea why this suit was filed. No one has entered her property since the day my husband gave her tomatoes from our garden. That’s all we know. We just wish people would stop making outrageous assumptions.

By: Todd Rogers

Todd Rogers — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:29:35 +0000

Oddly, as I read this, I have to say, this is nearly identical to the one my three brothers and I experienced as kids (79-92). Our neighbors sued us no less than three times in small claims. They also filed complaints with the local PD on at least a dozen occasions and my parents’ journal has records of about $500 in fines. While home on leave from Desert Storm, I was arrested and put in the clink for allegedly vandalizing their home. I was released within minutes after the PD found some kids who spilled the beans. Nevertheless, this saga went on for years. Old man Early even parked his running car, with the horn perpetually blowing, right outside my sister’s window, who was, at the time, going through chemo for Hodgkins (which the Earlys knew). This doesn’t change the facts of the case. But I do have a slight personal interest in this story. My folks waited the Earlys out, by the way, and did not attend either funeral.

By: Melvin H.

Melvin H. — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:43:50 +0000

Smoke–in what context do you “feel sorry” fo Mr. “Rodgers” neighbors? (Or is this a play on words for an old PBS show?)

By: SmokeVanThorn

SmokeVanThorn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:09:17 +0000

Mr. Rodgers – I feel sorry for your neighbors.

By: fjjfn nnn

fjjfn nnn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:23:31 +0000

Maybe there should be a section on crazy old people suing kids. There was the cookie lady, the ski-crash-conman, now this.

By: David Townsend

David Townsend — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:12:47 +0000

Having re-read the article, my sympathies have veered slightly more towards the parents as the lawsuit does not seem to be about the arrest but about the mental anguish of having your neighbours footballs and frisbees land on your lawn. I am having trouble seeing a great deal of harm in that fact. On the other hand, when it says ‘Although the Tanises wonder how such a seemingly small issue could mushroom into a lawsuit…’ I would argue that the molehill to mountain sequence was activated when the Tanises called the police.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 03:16:07 +0000

Surely the matter of returning a football tossed onto someone’s property is a civil matter, not theft. It seems to me that while it was reasonable for the police officer to attempt to mediate, he acted without lawful authority in ordering the woman to return the football and in arresting her.