Man Sues Church over Baptism for Dead Injury

I just have to shrug and laugh – especially since it is being filed so long after he claims it happened, the details simply don’t mesh with anything I’ve ever experienced, and . . . just about everything about the story.

It might have happened as he claims, but I have a really hard time taking it seriously.

No, flowerdrops, it’s not. Most lawsuits can’t require the disclosure of financial records. Only those that seek damages based on ability to pay severe damages (punitive damages designed to force someone or some organization to confront the issue and never do it again) generally include a demand to disclose.

The Church contests lawsuits all the time that it feels are frivolous or untrue. If it didn’t, anti-Mormon activists simply would file constant lawsuits in order to milk the Church and, eventually, bankrupt it. Settlements occur fairly often, but the reasons are varied – from something akin to “it’s not our fault, but the person involved was totally wrong” (like a Bishop sexually abuses a child) to “this will cost more to litigate than it’s worth”. Not disclosing financial records certainly plays a role in some cases, where the only point of the lawsuit is trying to force disclosure in order to craft other lawsuits in an attempt to bankrupt, but it isn’t the primary or most common reason to settle out of court.

That’s true of most reasonably large organizations. It’s extremely unfortunate, but it’s an absolute necessity in this day and age – of lawsuits like the one in question, imo.

I think this story is quite asinine personally. Ridiculous.

HOWEVER – I thought this comment attached to the story is perhaps not – always two sides to the story.

JDastrup says:

This goes out to all the people who think he’s faking. Danny Dastrup is the most upright non greedy person on the planet. This kid has been a proud unyielding member of the church since the day he was born. He served a mission, has served his church, his family, and his community for as long as I can remember. Out of a sense of duty and love for his church he baptized way more fatty’s than anyone should ever be expected to heft. After being stonewalled by the church over this matter, Danny was told by lawyers (LDS lawyers) that this would be the only way to get the church to listen to his story. Believe me when I say suing the church is the last thing he would ever want to do. This story ticks me off so much I even registered to this two-bit LDS run newspaper to get this off my chest. Hang in there Danny – from uncle J

I don’t know. Most of the other comments were totally anti-mormon, so how do you know? I can certainly see misguided church members INSISTING that one do what they are told, obedience to authority, and this kind of thing happening – even in the temple. What is hard for me to comprehend, is why ANYONE would continue to do it? Once again, you train members to be Fowler Stage 3 — you will get members who will martyr themselves unnecessarily for the organization and feel they will get their reward in heaven for doing so. Sad really.