McBride: Do as I say, not as I sue?

Courtesy of the Brew City Brawler and Boots and Sabers, I know it was a while ago, but this is just too funny not to post now that I have returned from hiatus.

Claiming their daughter severely burned her hands on a lobby fireplace, former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher and his wife, Jessica McBride, have filed a lawsuit against a West Bend hotel and its insurance company.

McBride is a frequent columnist for the Daily News.

The couple is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the suit filed against the Clairemont Inn and West Bend Mutual Insurance Co.

McBride was giving a campaign speech to a group at the hotel on Feb. 26, 2006 when the incident occurred, according to the suit filed in Washington County Circuit Court. Bucher was running as a Republican candidate for state attorney general.

Former Bucher associate Jennifer Dorow was watching the 10-month-old toddler, when the toddler put her hands on the glass front of a fireplace.

Dorow was later added to the lawsuit by Clairemont's insurer as a third defendant. Both Bucher and McBride said they did not blame Dorow, and said she should not have been included in the lawsuit.

“It happened in the wink of an eye,” Bucher said.

The lawsuit maintains that the Clairemont Inn ownership was negligent in “failing to install and maintain a protective device in proximity to the front of (the) fireplace to prevent individuals from coming in contact with the dangerously heated pane of glass over the opening of the active burning gas fire; and in failing to construct, repair or maintain said defendant's premises as safe as the nature of said defendant's business would reasonably permit.”

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages to recover medical costs, pain and suffering for the toddler, and emotional distress to her parents.

“Her hands were severely burned,” Bucher said. “Her hands actually stuck to the glass, it was so hot. It was the worst I’ve ever seen. Thank heavens it wasn’t her face.”

The burns were so severe that, after initial treatment at St. Joseph’s Hospital in the town of Polk, it was recommended the child be taken to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee, Bucher said.

The child, now 3, has recovered, he said.

Amy Goyette, an attorney representing West Bend Mutual and the Clairemont Inn, declined to comment.

The case is assigned to Judge Andy Gonring.

So much for personal responsibility and the pressing need for tort reform, huh? Maybe she'll take back some of those nasty things she's said about trial lawyers now that she needs one to represent her, not that I think her case has much of a chance. A 10-month old near a fire? What sane parent is going to let that child get within a country mile of that fireplace?