A Staten Island mom is making national
headlines today after suing the city of West
Brighton for $900 trillion, alleging the city
improperly placed her two children in foster
care.
The $900 trillion figure, first reported by the
New York Post, certainly is staggering and
the standard response so far has been to
treat the lawsuit as something of a joke,
focusing on the mother's alleged mental
illness.
But I have to agree with the Inquisitr's Kim
LaCapria, who says plaintiff Fausat
Ogunbayo is actually quite clever in
choosing to sue for $900 trillion. After all,
how many people would be reading about
this story and discussing Ogunbayo's plight
had she quietly filed her petition without
seeking monetary compensation?
Of course there's no way she'll get a
settlement remotely approaching that
number, if she is awarded anything at all.
After all, the entire U.S. has an annual gross
national income of just over $14 trillion. Or,
put another way, if Ogunbayo was awarded
$900 trillion she'd have enough disposable
income to pay off the U.S. national debt
several dozen times over.
Ogunbayo sued the city and the
Administration for Children's Services (ACS),
alleging that both entities violated her and
her children's civil liberties by placing them
in foster care in June, 2008. In her lawsuit,
obtained by The Smoking Gun, Ogunbayo
listed her grievances as follows:
"For causing plaintiff substantial economic
hardship; for causing plaintiff substantial
economic injuries; for depriving plaintiff and
plaintiff children's Civil Right, 42 U.S.C.
section 1983; for depriving plaintiff and
plaintiff's children, the right to family
integrity; for depriving plaintiff and
plaintiff's children, the right to life, liberty,
property and the right guaranteed by
statute; for disregarding the probability of
plaintiff's children, suffering emotional and
mental distress."
The city has not responded to Ogunbayo's
lawsuit but contends that she is mentally ill
and unable to properly care for her two
boys, who are now teenagers.The New York
City Law Department released a statement to
ABC News, which said, "We are unable to
comment on pending litigation. The amount
a plaintiff requests in a lawsuit has no
bearing on whether the case has any merit
and no relation to actual damages if any."
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