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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Ind. Courts - "Caesars' bid to dismiss suit rejected"

"Caesars' bid to dismiss suit rejected: Woman says casino exploited addiction," is the headline to a story by Grace Schneider in today's Louisville Courier Journal. Some quotes:

A request by Caesars Indiana to dismiss a Tennessee woman's lawsuit claiming that the casino took advantage of her gambling addiction was rejected yesterday by a Harrison County judge.

Circuit Judge H. Lloyd Whitis' ruling in the case of Jenny Kephart could open the door to a trial examining a casino's duty in handling compulsive gamblers. * * *

Whitis did not explain his reason for denying Caesars' motion. Kephart sued the casino in May after Caesars had taken her to court to recover $125,000 that Kephart lost during a single night of gambling in 2006.

Kephart, 52, of suburban Nashville, Tenn., has admitted losing more than $900,000 at casinos owned by Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns Caesars.

Her counterclaim alleges that Caesars knew that she had received a $1 million inheritance and enticed her with giveaways such as meals and overnight hotel stays and provided money on credit for her to gamble, despite knowing she was a compulsive gambler.

Noffsinger has said that casino executives also knew that Kephart had gone through bankruptcy four years earlier when parent Harrah's was one of her creditors. Kephart has worked in real estate but is now unemployed.

Indiana courts have shown little sympathy to gamblers who insist that casinos should be liable for their losses, ruling in similar cases that casino operators don't have to prevent customers from gambling.

Langdon had argued in written briefs and during a hearing before Whitis in August that Caesars employees had no way to know that Kephart was addicted to gambling because she didn't ask to be placed on a self-exclusion list allowing gamblers to have themselves banned from casinos.

In Indiana, 2,097 gamblers have requested self exclusion -- for periods of one year, five years or life -- since the program's inception in July 2004, according to Indiana Gaming Commission reports.

Here are some quotes from an earlier story (9/3/07) by the same reporter:
Kephart's case centers on whether a casino has a duty to protect an addicted gambler from himself or herself.

Her lawyer, Terry Noffsinger, Evansville, contends that pathological gambling is widely viewed as a mental illness. He argued that Caesars' representatives knew Kephart couldn't control her gambling binges but still took "affirmative steps to persuade her to gamble" by calling her at home and offering her credit and complimentary hotel rooms, meals and limousine rides.

In similar cases, Indiana courts have held that casino operators don't have to prevent customers from gambling and consequently aren't responsible for their losses.

But Noffsinger stressed that the law is not fully settled in cases involving problem gambling.

"If she had just gone in (to Caesars) on her own, that would be one thing," he said. Instead, he told the judge Wednesday, he intends to prove that casino officials knew that Kephart was an addicted gambler and that they pursued her because she had money to spare from a $1 million inheritance she received in 2004. * * *

Noffsinger previously represented Evansville resident and professed gambling addict David Williams in a federal lawsuit in which the precedent that casinos have no duty to protect a compulsive gambler from himself was upheld.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 29, 2007 10:38 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts