The 300-pound fan who fell on a woman and broke her back at Shea Stadium was so drunk he couldn’t even chant “Let’s Go Mets,” the woman’s lawyer said today.
Timothy Cassidy was so blasted before his drunken tumble onto lawyer Ellen Massey on Opening Day in 2007 he could barely walk, was picking fights with random fans and dropping the “L” from the “Let’s go Mets” chants, Massey’s lawyer said in court yesterday.
“He was unable to pronounce the word ‘Phillies’ or say ‘Let’s Go Mets,'” Massey’s lawyer, Joshua Kelner, told Justice Judith Gische.
Cassidy was also berating his fellow fans in the upper deck for not being loud enough, Kelner said.
“Why aren’t you cheering for the Mets? I’ll kick your f—ing ass!” Kelner quoted him as saying.
The lawyer levelled the allegations to bolster his client’s contention that the Mets and their beer vendor should be held responsible for his client’s injuries for serving the obvious drunk more beer and for failing to have security remove him from the game.
Mets’ lawyer Carla Varriale told the judge it was a “rowdy boisterous crowd” on hand for the eventual 11-7 win over the Phils, and Cassidy didn’t stand out to security. “When you drop the ‘L’ in ‘Let’s Go Mets’ that does not mean slurring,” she said, adding that’s the way some fans yell the chant.
“He may have been obnoxious, but that’s not the same thing as challenging someone to a fight,” Varriale said.
“‘I’m going to kick your ass is not a fight?” the incredulous judge responded.
The lawyer for Aramark said their vendors don’t remember serving Cassidy, and would have had no way to know how he was acting in the stands.
Massey’s lawyer maintained “there’s no way you could have failed to notice this guy. When somebody’s so durnk they can’t stand up, they shouldn’t be served.”
Varriale said the incident was “random,” and it could not have been predicted that Cassidy would tumble down several rows on top of Massey, who was there with her niece and nephew.
“Short of having psychic abilities no one could have foreseen that this was going to happen,” she said.
Cassidy’s lawyer, Brian O’Connor, maintains his client was not drunk, and was pushed by another fan who was upset with him for paying more attention to his Blackberry than the game.