Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312110049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Short
Denis O'Brien vows he'll never pay.
"I'll go nose to nose with them forever, if I have to," he said.
The now-defunct Mousetrap restaurant won a $64,000 judgment against O'Brien in 1982 - not for the tab, but for damaging its reputation over the disputed bill.
With interest, the judgment has grown to $143,435. O'Brien claims the judgment is invalid because he was unaware the restaurant was suing him.
It all started Feb. 29, 1980, when O'Brien briefly stopped at The Mousetrap.
He misplaced a red ticket given to patrons to keep track of their orders. When he tried to leave, the manager wanted him to pay the customary $5 fee for lost checks - even though he had purchased nothing.
O'Brien, at the time a graduate student in pharmacology at the University of Virginia, refused to pay. The manager called police, and O'Brien was arrested. A magistrate declined to charge him.
It just got uglier after that.
O'Brien filed two false-arrest lawsuits against the restaurant; both were thrown out. He distributed fliers soliciting complaints about The Mousetrap's red-ticket policy.
Circuit Judge Jay Swett ordered a contempt hearing after O'Brien refused to disclose his assets Thursday. No hearing date was set.
O'Brien, 46, said he returned from New Zealand in 1992 with the belief that both sides agreed to retry the entire matter. An attorney for Mousetrap owner Dianne Brubaker said there was no such agreement.
by CNB