SACRAMENTO -- The broadcasting company executive in charge of the station where Jennifer Lea Strange died in a 2007 water-drinking contest was dismissed Monday as a defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the woman's survivors.
Trial of that suit is in its fourth week.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd A. Phillips told the jury about the dismissal of John Geary from the case. The move to dismiss Geary, Entercom Sacramento LLC's vice president and market manager, was made following a discussion in Phillips' chambers with attorneys for the plaintiffs and defense.
The discussion was on the record, but Phillips sealed a record of the conversation.
Attorneys from both sides are precluded from discussing Geary's dismissal because of a gag order sought by Entercom's lawyers. Strange's attorneys did not oppose the request for the gag order.
Phillips told jurors that attorneys for both sides agreed "that John Geary was acting in the course and scope of his employment" at Entercom Sacramento at the time of Strange's Jan. 12, 2007, death. In the water-drinking event, contestants were asked to drink as much water as they could without urinating. The winner of the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest would then win a hard-to-get video game.
Geary declined to comment on his dismissal from the suit.
He testified last week that he didn't know anything about the water-drinking contest until he received news of Strange's death.
Read the full story at sacbee.com