Lindsay Lohan to sue accuser over DWI allegation

May 13, 2015

On behalf of Terence Gross of Gross & Schuster, P.A. posted in Drunk Driving on Friday, September 28, 2012.

Actress Lindsay Lohan says she is tired of people who look at her as a “paycheck,” so the 26 year-old says she will sue the  man who claims Lohan was driving drunk when she clipped him with a Porsche. The alleged victim says Lohan slurred her words and smelled of alcohol at the scene of the incident earlier this month in New York City’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood.

Lohan is a celebrity lightning rod who is intimately familiar with the criminal justice system. Her police record, including two drunk driving arrests, multiple stints in rehab and plenty of jail time may come back to haunt her at a civil trial, should the case ever make it to a courtroom. Her defamation case against the 34 year-old cook is intended to send a message to the public; that she will not tolerate “people lying just to score a quick paycheck.” Already there are questions about her accuser. The man says Lohan was driving “real quick” when she brushed his leg turning into a driveway. The police investigation and video of the incident don’t support his version of the event.

The “Mean Girls” star has a high legal hurdle to clear if she proceeds with the defamation suit. Lohan is considered to be a “public figure,” thanks to her choice of professions and her previous brushes with the law and the courts. She will have to prove that the alleged brush-back victim not only lied, he lied with malice. That means he knew what he was saying is false, but he said it anyway. Public figures have to endure ugly slanders, libels, accusations and all sorts of defamatory slams with no legal recourse.

Lohan was charged with leaving the scene of an accident but she was not charged with drunk driving or asked to take a Breathalyzer test. Officers on the scene said she showed no signs of impairment. The chef told a New York newspaper that he felt slighted by the investigation, complaining that the police, “acted like I was nothing. No one could touch her because she is rich and powerful.”

Source: FindLaw.com, “Lindsay Lohan to sue pedestrian who says she was drunk,” Andrew Lu, Sep. 24,