Actor Suing Nintendo For Donkey Kong-Related Heart Injury

[StewShearerOld]

Actor Suing Nintendo For Donkey Kong-Related Heart Injury

Actor Parker Mills claims that a job at a Nintendo event left him with a heart condition.

Whether he's lobbing barrels at Mario or trying to recover the Kong clan's bananas, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/donkey%20kong%20country?os=donkey+kong+country>Donkey Kong's life is one filled with hard labor in less than optimum conditions. Have you ever actually thought about those <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH-UGtfGH8I>underwater levels? Gorillas are not made to hold their breath that long. Even so, on the scale of danger, it would seem that being Donkey Kong isn't even half as hazardous as pretending to be him.

That's our take away, at least, from Parker Mills' recent lawsuit against <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/nintendo>Nintendo. An actor, Mills was hired by the game company to work at a May 2013 event being hosted at the Los Angeles Zoo. Aimed at promoting the release of <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/reviews/10337-Donkey-Kong-Country-Returns-3D-Review>Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, the job entailed wearing a Donkey Kong costume to entertain guests looking to <a href=http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/O9vebHYlus8RBh-kiLmkBVNT_0I_1v5p>"spend time" with the fictional ape. Things went awry however, when the Nintendo ambassador hired to accompany Mills and monitor his activities apparently denied him breaks and failed to provide an ice pack necessary to combat the hot weather.

According to his attorneys, this created "a very stressful environment" that led to Mills suffering an aortic dissection that would eventually require him to undergo surgery and receive a permanent heart defibrillator implant. What's unclear right now is what Mills is seeking in compensation for his injuries. Nintendo, likewise, has offered no official response to the press concerning the lawsuit. We've reached out to both parties to see what we can learn.

Source: <a href=http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-donkey-kong-sues-nintendo-20141202-story.html>LA Times



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[Rednog]

When I read the title and saw the associated picture I thought that the guy was going to claim that he had to run around like Donkey Kong pounding his chest which resulted in the injury. But if the guy had to run around in a hot costume with no breaks and no ice pack, he might actually have a case.

 

[Buckshaft]

Hehe. 'Suit' I see what you did there.

 

[TitanAura]

It sound more like a pre-existing condition so I doubt you can prove that the event was the "cause" of the heart condition, but the neglect on the part of Nintendo sounds like a legitimate claim.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Huh, I wonder if that's where this gif came from.

It does sound like he has a case, but of course, this seems to just be his side of the story at the moment.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Who would have thought that something with such a ridiculous title could actually have a serious complaint that's not too unreasonable.

Though I wonder if he ha s a genetic disposition to it or not, got a bunch of things to consider.

 

[Roxas1359]

Though I wonder if he ha s a genetic disposition to it or not, got a bunch of things to consider.

Something's telling me he might have, and didn't know. But if Nintendo really wasn't allowing breaks, then they are responsible for accelerating it. Not to mention that costumed events are supposed to give the people wearing them ice packs so as to prevent heat stroke, and it was in California which is strict penalties when it comes to not giving employees breaks. Nintendo and random lawsuits are quite common, but this sounds like quite a legitimate case in all honesty. Now to wait for people to start calling the guy suing Nintendo a lair because that also tends to happen a lot too.

 

[Arfreid]

Err... I don't think he has a case unless he has definite proof that the job he did more than a year ago and nothing else in this time span caused him his current condition. He should have sued shortly after the job.

 

[kaizen2468]

This wont get far lol hot weather doesn't cause an aortic dissection.

 

[Mahorfeus]

I rolled my eyes when I first read the article title, but yeah, this guy definitely has case.

Come on Nintendo, I love you, but you can just pull something like that. I'm sure it was more the ambassador's fault than the company's, but it still reflects badly on them. Chances are they'll settle this out of court, I think.

 

[Rednog]

When I read the title and saw the associated picture I thought that the guy was going to claim that he had to run around like Donkey Kong pounding his chest which resulted in the injury. But if the guy had to run around in a hot costume with no breaks and no ice pack, he might actually have a case.

Might? Nope he has a pretty solid case there. Hazardous working conditions that's right up in there.

It's hazardous working conditions, but at the same time aortic dissection is a pretty hard thing to prove that the incident was the sole cause. I'm sure Nintendo's pricey lawyers will try to patch it up to a genetic condition or a pre-existing condition. Heat is a really bizarre thing to combat. People have died before in a few hours, while others can run around all day. Heck I personally got heat stroke when I was in college, because my dorm didn't allow us to place fans in the windows, and the rooms were really small. This was in the middle of a heat wave, dead noon my room was about a hundred degrees. I ended up vomiting and passing out. We took the college up on paying my medial bill and they only got held liable for a small portion because they argued that I hadn't taken enough steps to try and prevent the heat stroke.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

If he was indeed denied breaks or an ice pack then it sounds like he has a legitimate case here, otherwise I fail to see how he's going to prove this.

 

[Reed Spacer]

This wont get far lol hot weather doesn't cause an aortic dissection.

Except it didn't say that..

...this created "a very stressful environment" that led to Mills suffering an aortic dissection...

High blood pressure can cause an aortic dissection.

The heat was the cause the stress and the stress was the cause of the dissection.

 

[Battenberg]

I suspect there may be more to this story which will eventually come to light. People work long shifts in hot weather all the time without developing heart conditions. Presumably there's some other factor(s) that increased the chance of this happening; perhaps he got hit in the chest at some point or suffered from hypertension.

If it's something he didn't disclose to the employer it's his fault but if it's something they were aware of you have to question why he was given that job in the first place. If either party was aware that the difference between him being fine and him becoming quite seriously ill could be as little as an ice pack and a 15 minute break then surely said party should shoulder the blame for allowing him to undertake such a high risk job. If there were no pre-existing conditions/ reasons to not give him this job then I struggle to see any way in which a few days' work could possibly be solely responsible, even if his employers didn't treat him as well as they should. That's just my two cents though.

 

[Therumancer]

When I read the title and saw the associated picture I thought that the guy was going to claim that he had to run around like Donkey Kong pounding his chest which resulted in the injury. But if the guy had to run around in a hot costume with no breaks and no ice pack, he might actually have a case.

Maybe, it can depend on state laws. See, if you know something is dangerous and do it anyway then you can't claim your employer is liable if you continued to act knowing the risks involved. In some areas what the laws do is actually protects you and gives you a case if you are told to do something dangerous and you refuse and your boss fires you. The big exception in places where the law works this way is if the employee doesn't know something is dangerous. They have a case if say a piece of equipment your using breaks and you didn't know it was in poor condition, or if say an employer sends you someplace where they know there is asbestos, radiation, ventilation problems, or whatever else. It can get touchy sometimes in cases where neither the employee or the employer know something is wrong... but basically if you know something is likely to cause you to be injured, and you do it anyway, that makes you an idiot not your boss. For the record being a big believe in workers rights I do not happen to agree with this because to be honest it's not usually viable to tell a boss "no" and then get reasonable compensation after the fact. Such laws generally work to shield employers in a position where they deal with relatively desperate employees. It's been a very long time, but I believe some states like Kentucky might work like this. I know it largely because when I worked for the casinos I dealt with some people from OSHA who were actually overruled by TOSHA which is the same thing except Tribal (hence the T) and basically had supreme authority on the reservation and reserved the right to make such decisions, and even be pretty subjective despite what they post because you know... Indian Reservation. OSHA on the other hand still was allowed to have eyes on things once in a while but pretty much couldn't do squat. Not that it was a terrible place to work mind you, because it actually wasn't, I've just discussed such things in the past with people who I assume are in a position to understand the big picture.

At any rate, the point here is that whether this guy can sue like this largely depends on the laws, because in some places it can be argued he's liable for his own injuries because when he was refused rest and an ice pack he should havr refused to continue doing the job. According to such logic if he refused to continue under those circumstances and they fired him, that's when he'd supposedly have a case, not after he injured himself doing something he knew wasn't safe.

I suspect Nintendo might be relatively quiet about such things because it wants to weigh it's options, in a case like this if what I've heard is correct, the venue the case is decided in can make a big difference. While unrelated to this kind of issue, this is why you'll notice a lot of EULAs specify things like how disputes are to be handled in California, which is because California has laws very friendly to computer/IP/Copyright based businesses, compared to other states which might wind up raking them over hot coals for things California would side with them over. The same logic probably applies to this case, and I'd imagine Nintendo wants to fight the case in the state or country with policies most friendly to them if they can find a way to justify it.

 

[orangeapples]

A case that doesn't seem insane? in the gaming sphere no less? I almost don't know how to respond.

 

[faefrost]

This wont get far lol hot weather doesn't cause an aortic dissection.

That was my thought. Being in extremely hot weather might irritate or exacerbate an already existing defect, but I doubt that can be proven to be the employers fault.

An aortic dissection is pretty much exclusively from defect or injury. The most common being hitting the steering wheel in a car accident. This is not a heat type event or a typical "heart attack".

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Like others, I thought this was yet another lawsuit troll, but it looks like this guy has a case. Telling someone they can't have a break or even an icepack while running around in a massive suit really isn't acceptable.