A Houston man with no sense of humor is suing his former employer, a car dealership co-owned by Texas State Rep. Patricia Harless, after coworkers attacked him with a stun gun in what the coworkers were certain was a series of hilarious pranks. Bradley Jones says that over a nine month period, fellow employees at Fred Fincher Motors repeatedly sneaked up on him and shocked him with the device.
He said it happened at least two dozen times and each incident left him more on edge.
“I was constantly looking behind my shoulder, distracted, couldn’t sleep,” Jones said. “I would even look behind my shower curtain at home.”
Jones insists the tasings were not actually funny, even though videos posted to YouTube clearly show his coworkers laughing uproariously each time Jones is shocked.
Jones said his boss, Sam Harless, provided the stun gun and also held the camera many times. The videos were posted on YouTube, but have been taken off.
Jones said he didn’t quit because he was trying to buy a home.
Jones sued his former employer and two employees for assault and battery, and failure to provide a safe work place.
Despite the video evidence, Sam Harless, husband of Rep. Harless, is confident that he will prevail over the twitchy whiner who simply couldn’t handle a bit of 50,000-volt horseplay among friends:
“I’m just happy that I’m an American and I’m in a country where the justice system works,” Harless said. “This is a frivolous lawsuit — once the facts come out, it will be thrown out.”
Over the weekend, Rep. Harless released a statement saying that she had no knowledge of the alleged tasings:
“I was notified 4 days ago that a lawsuit was filed by a former employee who was terminated for cause from Fred Fincher Motors.” Harless said …
“We will fully investigate the allegations. The news accounts and videos do not depict the full story.”
We are looking forward to an explanation of those videos. There’s probably some perfectly understandable context for a business allowing employees to play around with a high-voltage device designed to incapacitate people. Maybe they simply mistook Jones for a 17-year old graffiti skateboard punk or a 95 year old veteran or something.
[KHOU via RawStory / Houston Chronicle]
