John Danks Being Sued after Man Was Paralyzed in Fall Off His Condo Roof

White Sox pitcher John Danks tossed a shutout against the Astros on Sunday. Google results gave about 600+ plus articles about his performance vs Houston. A little further down the queue came a result from the Chicago Tribune with the title, “White Sox John Danks at center of drama involving friend paralyzed at condo.”

Long story short, the in-depth story by Tribune reporter Jared S. Hopkins from Friday — based primarily on court documents since none of the individuals involved talked about it — is worth you time. The Tribune story tries to piece together what happened at Danks’ condo in the early hours of a mid-August night in 2010. It’s an engrossing read, well worth your time.

Danks was out at bars drinking with his then-girlfriend and two brothers, Blake and Waylon Papst– Waylon was Danks’ high school friend from Texas. The brothers came to visit him in Chicago and attended a White Sox game before the group went to bars. At some point late that night, after they had returned to Danks’ condo, the two brothers climbed up on top of a roof. They allegedly got into a scuffle over a cell phone and Blake Papst fell 10 feet off the roof, injuring himself.

From there what happened next differs greatly between Blake Papst and Danks, who did not call an ambulance. (The Tribune‘s graphic breaking down the timeline is quite good.)

This is a good summation of the events:

What followed immediately is in dispute but everyone is clear on one detail: An ambulance was not called. Instead, Danks and his two friends eventually went to sleep inside the condo, leaving Papst alone on the deck.

“He didn’t act like he was very hurt,” Danks later testified, according to court papers. “I mean, he almost acted like he got the wind knocked out of him more than anything.”

But Papst was seriously injured; he has not walked again.

In his version of the events of that night, also contained in court filings, Papst says his pleas for help were ignored by Danks and others and no one would even hand him his cellphone.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Danks and Papst’s brother carried him back inside, maneuvering him down a flight of stairs. Even then, no one called an ambulance.

The report also notes Danks thought the injured man, “needed to sleep off ‘bad drugs’ and alcohol.” There were also questions about whether or not Papst had insurance, and at least according to some of the testimony, that contributed to the lack of a call to 911.

In 2012, Blake Papst sued Danks for negligence, including failure to timely contact paramedics. According to the Tribune, Danks offered a $2 million settlement earlier in the case, which was rejected. The case could go to trial in November.

In his deposition testimony, Danks tried to explain why he didn’t call an ambulance after the accident.

“Well,” Danks testified, “I had told Waylon that it was his brother and he was the cause of the accident. ‘You’re in charge.’ I thought that would be the right thing to do. You know, I know if it’s my brother laying on the ground I would want to take charge of it. So I put Waylon in charge. I mean, he acknowledged that. So I was just kind of following his lead at that point.”

Danks’ lawyer Elizabeth A. Kaveny maintains that the lawsuit, which also involves other defendants including the condo board, is not really about Danks. “John just has the name, the success that has come from hard work and true talent, and the overriding presumption that he has ‘deep pockets,'” she told The Chicago Tribune.

from The Big Lead http://ift.tt/1K4QAuQ