Phillies

Phillie Phanatic Being Sued For Tossing Woman Into Swimming Pool

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jun 12th, 2012 · 2:37 PM EDT

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What? The Phanatic?! Yes, the Phanatic.

According to a lawsuit filed last week, an Abington woman claims that while attending a wedding at The Golden Inn in Avalon in 2010, the Phillie Phanatic tossed her and her lounge chair into the shallow end of a swimming pool, causing injuries to her “head, neck, back, body, arms, legs,  bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and tissues”… head, shoulders, knees and toes (KNEES AND TOES!). 

[Philly.com]

"The next day she really felt it and had a difficult time getting out bed and had a difficult time participating in the wedding," Denker said.

Since it was unclear who was actually in the Phanatic costume that day, Peirce is suing both Tom Burgoyne and Matt Mehler or any other unnamed individual who was portraying the Galápagos Islands native there, the complaint claims. The team and The Golden Inn are also named as defendants.

 

That sounds awful. But it also sounds like a gross exaggeration. Unless you’re diving head-first, being tossed into a swimming pool, even the shallow end, rarely results in serious injuries, one would think. And what does difficult time participating in the wedding mean? She couldn't dance? Couldn't get to the open bar? Couldn't catch the bouquet and have her lifelong dream of being swept off her feet and nuptualized by a tall, dark (green?) and handsome man fulfilled? What. Does. It. Mean.

Philly.com points out that the Phanatic has been sued three times in the last 10 years, though most of those claims result more from the accidental collateral of a giant green thing in our midst than they do a mascot intentionally hurling unsuspecting fans into pools.

The accuser's lawyer, Aaron Denker, said the Phanatic wasn’t a part of the particular wedding his client was attending.

Whatever the case, perhaps The Golden Inn may want to remove that picture of the Phanatic from the home page of its website.

Video after the jump of the Phanatic at The Golden Inn. It appears to have been taken a month before the fan-tossing incident.

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This story was originally posted with the title "… empty swimming pool," which would have been decidedly more ridiculous. Sorry about that. Somehow, I misread original story. Twice.