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Today in “yes, really:” A former town employee in Culpeper, Va. was ordered to pay $5,001 to a former co-worker for spiking his coffee pot with pee five years ago.
According to the Star Exponent, 53-year-old James Carroll Butler was ordered to pay the sum by a Culpepper County Circuit Court jury after the victim, Michael Utz, took him to court for the incident, $728,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for causing him severe emotional distress. The jury ruled that Butler should pay Utz $5,001 for “committed battery upon [Utz] or put him in reasonable fear of receiving bodily harm.”
But how does one get to the point where they dislike a person so much they resort to college frat boy-like antics? Well, the story goes like this: Butler, who had “personal ill will and spite toward [Utz],” decided to take action against his co-worker by making him drink urine. Court records show that, on March 16, 2009, Butler peed into a toilet, scooped out the urine-tainted toilet water with a soda can, and then poured that into Utz’s coffee pot. When Utz went to make a cup of coffee he “was hit with a strong smell of urine, observing fluid already inside his coffee pot that he had not put in there.”
Utz told his supervisor, who suggested he get it tested. And what do you know? It tested positive for containing urine and fecal matter! Butler finally admitted to being the pee-spiking culprit after Utz’s supervisor held a meeting with employees about the incident.
Utz’s attorney, Michael Sharman, told the Star Exponent that Utz is “really, really happy about the victory and he’s glad it’s done.” The lesson here? Use your words, not your bodily fluids to work out problems with your co-workers.