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Smile! You've Been Hit With A Lawsuit.
When Philip Zelnick was instructed to climb on top
of an authentic-looking, but phony, X-ray scanner machine (though
identical in appearance to scanners reserved for carry-on luggage, the
fake did not emit real rays), he asked, "Okay, where's the candid camera?"
It seemed fishy, but Zelnick complied with the airport security official
at the Bullhead City, Arizona airport. By the time the security guard
(actually "Candid Camera" host Peter Funt) barked his trademark "Smile!
You're on 'Candid Camera!'" the last thing Zelnick wanted to do was smile
— instead, he wanted to sue.
In a suit filed against Funt, "Candid Camera," the Pax television network,
the airport and the Mojave Country Airport Authority, Zelnick claims he
incurred bruises and bleeding after becoming stuck in the fake scanner.
According to his lawyer, Andrew Jones, Zelnick's
thigh was pinched in the machine, forming a red, fist-sized "raspberry."
His leg was also punctured by a pen inside his pocket.
"It wasn't a deep wound," Jones told Courttv.com. But "anxiety, distress,
and humiliation" were after-effects of Zelnick's experience.
Zelnick is seeking an unspecified amount in damages for battery,
negligence, false imprisonment, misrepresentation, and infliction of
emotional distress. Jones hesitated to speculate about the trial's
outcome. "I am hoping for a verdict that will be fair to my client," he
said.
Six other unsuspecting travelers took a trip down the conveyor belt that
day. None, aside from Zelnick, suffered any injuries, and "Candid Camera"
broadcast the stunt (without Zelnick footage) as planned.
To Zelnick and his lawyer, the ill-fated gag was a classic example of
reality TV gone wrong.
"This was forcing someone to do something he didn't want to do," said
Jones. "It was an attempt to humiliate [Zelnick] openly, so that people
could laugh at him on TV, for personal profit and gain."
In response to a New York Times article alleging that host Peter Funt "did
not express particular sympathy" for Zelnick, the company expressed a
"relative lack of sympathy for a legal action that seeks to exaggerate and
alter the facts of the incident." Exaggerated or not, Zelnick's complaint
against "Candid Camera" — a 54-year-old dinosaur of reality TV— is,
according to its Web site, the first the show has incurred.
As for Zelnick, his lawyer hopes that taped footage of the fateful scanner
ride, in which a grumbling Zelnick passes through the X-ray machine
several times, will hold enough evidence to sway Monday's courtroom.
According to Jones, "the segment speaks for itself."
Source: FindLaw.com, Court TV, "Harsh Reality: Unwitting traveler takes
'Candid Camera' to court," June 20, 2003.
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