Tag Archive | "Darlene Tracy"

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Oprah Winfrey smacked with two lawsuits

Posted on 21 March 2008 by Tammy Cakes

One media mogul of a woman slapped with two separate lawsuits all just this week. One was filed by an audience member of the Oprah Winfrey Show who was injured when the excited audience members stampeded into the auditorium to get their choice seats during a taping. The second was filed by a Boston mother who claims that she fed Harpo Studios the idea of Oprah’s new television show, Oprah’s Big Give, and has yet to get credit or compensation.

The first suit by the audience member was filed in Chicago’s Cook’s County Circuit Court (I dare you to say that 5x fast) by Orit Greenberg who is seeking at least $50,000 in medical fees and other damages because she says she has suffered “severe and permanent injuries.”

I’m saying only $50k for permanent and severe injuries?! Come’on girl–you can dream bigger than that! If I had permanent injuries cuz they couldn’t do some crowd control…hmmmm…I’m thinking at leat a mil, no?

The suit blames Harpo for the incident, saying the company failed to exercise adequate crowd control measures and was careless to allow energetic women to battle it out out for the perfect seats.

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As for the second suit, filed by Darlene Tracy, who claims that she pitched a reality show back in February of 2005, called The Philanthropist, to Ellen Rakieten and Jennifer Thornton (the executive producer and a producer of Winfrey’s daytime talk show). The idea? Contestants would be judged on their ability to help those less fortunate.

So, about a year & a half later, in November 2006, Winfrey announced her plans for a show with a similar concept—way too similar for Tracy’s liking! Tracy filed a complaint in Boston’s U.S. District Court to prevent the Big Give from airing, though a judge quickly dismissed the filing after Winfrey’s lawyers argued that Massachusetts wasn’t the place to embark on the legal battle. Recently, Tracy filed an appeal, which includes documentation of her correspondence with the Oprah Winfrey Show producers.

For the first case, a Harpo rep told E! News on Friday that the company does not comment on pending litigation.

But for the second, a Harpo rep went on to say that Winfrey’s team was “confident that the Court of Appeals will agree that Tracy has no claim.”

Big money usually wins, so whether these chicks are right or wrong, I’m betting it’ll likely go in O’s favor–at least the 2nd lawsuit for sure seems unlikely to get a win…

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