We did a project at a fancy boy's club on the upper east side a few 
years back. They did not want the crew using their bathrooms, or any 
bathroom within the building. So the contract stipulated that we had to 
provide a portable toilet on the street. We got a permit to set a 
portable toilet on the street, at the curb. We had a hell of a time 
because folks in that area are real nasty about their parking rights. We 
would come onto the site and find the toilet pushed down the curb to 
make way for someone to park. It was fairly obvious they were pushing it 
around with their expensive cars, Rovers, Jaguars, Lexis sort of rolling 
stock. Eventually the john would make itself East in front of the 'art' 
gallery and the owner there would complain and we would have to haul it 
back to the west end of our project.

About 2 years after the project was completed the architect called and 
asked me if we had any records on dates for when the loo was in the 
street. I asked why. Seems a 7 year old claimed that they tripped over 
the unit and broke their leg and they were suing the school. Only 
problem I remember with all of that was that the wrong street was named 
in the lawsuit. Then I got asked about when we delivered brick to the 
site, which was on the street named in the suit. After that I have not 
heard anyting... but these lawsuits have a habit of popping up years later.

I think the most interesting one for me was when the super of the 
building whose job it was to maintain the tree pits on his sidewalk 
tripped in a tree pit and broke his leg. He was suing the owner of the 
building who in turn was suing us. He claimed that it was because he was 
looking up at our sidewalk bridge that he did not see where he was 
walking and therefore it was our fault. That went away after a while but 
not before the woman that owned the building had put a lot of pressure 
on us to settle on her behalf. She was a witch and 3/4's and we ignored 
her as much as possible. I never blamed the super for trying to sue her.

And then there was the time the book dealer had his lawyer send me a 
letter threatening to sue me because the book dealer thought I was a 
lousy poet. He actually wanted $150.00 that he never got from me after 
that little stunt. I may have written a letter back threatening to 
counter sue for defamation of character or some such. The book dealer 
also sued his mother... she settled for $10,000 on the condition that he 
never ever talk to her again.

][<

Cuyler Page wrote:

>> He said he was having a hell of a time selling property owners on the 
>> equipment because if they knew what their building was doing then it 
>> would make then liable for any consequences.
>>
> I had the same advice from a lawyer when I began operating a 
> Provincial historic site as a private business.

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