A man who added urine to a co-worker's coffee has been ordered to pay $5,001 in damages, with that last dollar being a huge middle finger in his face.
In March 2009, James Carroll Butler decided to spite co-worker Michael Utz by pouring urine that he had collected from a toilet using a soda can into Utz's coffee pot at the Culpepper, Va. water treatment plant where they worked. Utz was in the process of making coffee when he noticed the tell-tale odor of urine, as well as a foreign liquid inside of the pot.
After informing a supervisor who suggested the liquid be tested, it was revealed that it contained both urine and feces. Bulter's guilty conscience got the best of him and he confessed.
According to court documents that the Daily Progress got its hands on, Butler will have to pay $5,000 in punitive damages, while the $1 is for compensatory damages. Utz was originally seeking $728,000, but he's not too mad about the cash he's getting for his grievance.
As for Butler, well, he was obviously fired and sentenced to a year in jail and a year of unsupervised probation, though 11 months of that jail sentence were suspended.
Lesson: Don't taint anyone's beverage with waste. It'll cost you time and money.
[via Gawker and Daily Progress]
