How I imagine the trial would proceed

Lawyer: What I am driving at is God’s hand is at work here and the church is powerless to prevent God from doing His work. God and not the church or the statue cured your wife just like God and not the church or the statue caused the statue to fall over. Both acts, according to your faith, are what we could call ACTS OF GOD. Can someone else be sued for an act of God?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Man Who Lost Leg After Crucifix Fell on Him While Praying Sues Church for US$3mil

(Daily Mail) - A cruel twist of fate cost David Jimenez his leg when the crucifix he prayed to every day when his wife was fighting cancer toppled over and crushed him.

Jimenez stopped every day to pray to the statue of Jesus on the cross outside Church of St Patrick in Newburgh, New York. When his wife, Delia, recovered from the cancer, the 45-year-old father of two offered to clean the crucifix as an act of faith and a goodwill gesture. However, as he scrubbed the heavy marble object, it fell off its shaky pedestal and landed on his leg, the Mid-Hudson News Network reported.

The pizza parlour employee is now suing the church for US$3 million, claiming the priest who gave him permission to work on the unstable statue was negligent. The injury on Memorial Day in 2010 so badly mangled Jimenez's right leg that doctors were forced to amputate it just below the knee.

The church told CBS New York that the congregation collected food and US$7,000 in cash donations for Jimenez and his family. However, Jimenez's lawyer, Kevin Kitson, said the insurance company for the diocese had made collecting additional money difficult. As a result of the legal action, the church has removed the crucifix from the Church of St Patrick and moved it to another parish.

Kitson said his client, a devout Catholic, still believes it played a role in his wife's recovery. “David attributed the cure to his devotion to that cross,” he told CBS New York. Nonetheless, the lawyer maintains that the church was negligent.

He said only one screw held the marble statue in place. That gave way when Jimenez scrubbed the statue, causing it to fall over.

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This is how I imagine the trial would proceed.

Lawyer: Mr Jimenez, you say that the church was negligent and that this negligence caused the statue of Jesus on the cross to fall over and crush your leg. Could it not be that you were negligent instead and that it was your negligence that caused the statue to fall over rather than the negligence of the church?

Plaintiff: No. I was very careful. I was not negligent.

Lawyer: So, in spite of your carefulness, the statue still fell over. Hence it was not your own negligence. Is that correct?

Plaintiff: That is correct.

Lawyer: You volunteered or offered to clean the statue as an act of faith and a goodwill gesture. Is that correct?

Plaintiff: Yes, that is correct.

Lawyer: So the church did not ask you or request you to clean the statue.

Plaintiff: No, but the church gave me permission to do so knowing that it was dangerous.

Lawyer: How do you know that the church was aware that it was dangerous to clean the statue? Did the priest or anyone else from the church tell you it was dangerous?

Plaintiff: No. No one told me it was dangerous. But they would have known it was dangerous and they should have told me.

Lawyer: How do you know they would have known it was dangerous?

Plaintiff: Well…I sort of just know. It’s a sort of feeling I have.

Lawyer: So, you have no evidence of this. It is just a feeling you have that the church knew it was dangerous and you also have a feeling that they did not tell you that it was dangerous in spite of knowing that it was dangerous?

Plaintiff: Well…err…well yes.

Lawyer: So, in spite of you being able to have all these feelings, you did not have any feeling that the statue might fall over if you start cleaning it.

Plaintiff: Err…no.

Lawyer: And you volunteered or offered to clean the statue because you have faith that your prayers in front of the statue helped cure your wife’s cancer.

Plaintiff: That’s right.

Lawyer: Are you saying that the statue cured your wife’s cancer?

Plaintiff: No, not the statue. God cured my wife’s cancer because I constantly prayed in front of the statue. It was God's will.

Lawyer: So it was God’s will that your wife was cured, not the statue’s will. Is that correct?

Plaintiff: That’s right.

Lawyer: But the statue fell over when you cleaned it.

Plaintiff: That’s right.

Lawyer: So it was not the statue’s will that it fell over but God’s will.

Plaintiff: Err…I think so…you are confusing me.

Lawyer: Mr Jimenez, it’s a simple question. Is it God’s will or the statue’s will that it fell over?

Plaintiff: It’s God’s will.

Lawyer: So, it was God and not the statue that cured your wife’s cancer and it is God’s will and not the statue’s will that it fell over and crushed your leg. So why sue the church then? Since God is the cause of both your wife’s cancer being cured as well as for the statue falling over would it not be God’s doing and therefore you should be suing God instead of the church?

Plaintiff: I can’t sue God!

Lawyer: Why not?

Plaintiff: Well, because you just can’t, that’s why.

Lawyer: But the church had no hand in this. In fact, even the statue had no hand in this, as you admit. It was the hand of God that both cured your wife and made the statue fall over. So why sue the church for something that God did?

Plaintiff: It just does not work like that.

Lawyer: Even if the church had not been negligent but God had willed the statue to fall over could the church have prevented God’s will?

Plaintiff: I don’t understand.

Lawyer: Let me put it another way then. Can the church defy God?

Plaintiff: Of course not. No one can defy God.

Lawyer: So, if God had wanted the statue to fall over then there is nothing the church could have done, is that correct?

Plaintiff: What are you driving at?

Lawyer: What I am driving at is God’s hand is at work here and the church is powerless to prevent God from doing His work. God and not the church or the statue cured your wife just like God and not the church or the statue caused the statue to fall over. Both acts, according to your faith, are what we could call ACTS OF GOD. Can someone else be sued for an act of God?

Plaintiff: Err…err…you are confusing me.

Lawyer: Your Honour, I ask the court to set aside this suit and award costs to my client as the Plaintiff has admitted that what happened to him was an act of God and not negligence on the part of the church. I have also received instructions that if the Plaintiff would like to sue God I am authorised to represent Him.