NO RUNNING at the Drive-In!
On Thursday, July 15, 1954, Georgia Stokke was out with her children seeing a movie at the CinemaPark Drive-In Theatre, located in Maricopa County, Arizona. She was recuperating from a surgical procedure performed on June 21, 1954 on the cervical portion of her spine. Little did she know that she would be filing a civil suit against Theodore Karatz, doing business as CinemaPark Drive In Theatre, the next year because of a fateful encounter with a speaker box.
According to the complaint from civil case 2179, filed on January 31, 1955, “At said time while plaintiff was sitting in the right front seat of her automobile watching the motion picture then and there being shown, a young boy, without notice or warning to plaintiff, ran into and collided with the wire which extended from the speaker box in plaintiff’s automobile to the speaker post or stanchion adjacent to plaintiff’s automobile. Immediately upon the collision by said boy with the wire the speaker box in plaintiff’s automobile was displaced, thrown and hurled with great force and violence against plaintiff’s right collar bone area causing plaintiff to jerk her body and twist her head away from the impact.”
The personal injury case was dismissed with prejudice without any costs to any of the parties on May 13, 1955.
Series: Civil Case Files,1938-2002. Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States,1685-2009. (National Archives Identifier: 562761)
