Oprah Faces Personal Injury Lawsuit

Chicago, ILA woman who attended a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show on December 5, 2006 says that she was seriously injured in a stampede of audience members rushing to find the best seats. The crowd was placed within a waiting room and told to sit wherever they wanted, which caused a frenzy amongst the audience members to rush to the best seats as fast as they could. In the process, the woman was pushed down the stairs. As a result, she alleges that she has suffered permanent injuries that are severe.

The woman, Orit Greenburg, filed a lawsuit in Chicago's Cook County Circuit Court against Harpo Studios, the company that is owned by Oprah Winfrey and is home to the Oprah Winfrey Show. She alleges that Harpo failed to control the crowd, which resulted in her injuries.

Greenburg is seeking more than $50,000 to cover various damages in addition to her medical bills that she says she accumulated due to the treatment she received for her injuries. Her injuries have not been specified nor has Harpo or Oprah offered any public statements regarding the lawsuit since Harpo policy says that they do not comment on pending litigation.

Another lawsuit that Winfrey is facing is from a Boston Mother who says that she pitched the idea for Oprah's Big Give to Harpo studios back in 1995. Darlene Tracey, the mother-of-four, says that her idea was pitched to Jennifer Thornton and Ellen Rakieten who are the producer and executive producer of Oprah's talk show. The show that Tracey pitched was called The Philanthropist and gave contestants the chance to compete by helping out the less fortunate.

Tracey says that she was contacted by Rakieten who requested more information, but said 4 months later she was told that Harpo was not going to do the show. However, in November 2006, Winfrey announced that she planned on doing a series that, to Tracey, too closely resembled her idea.

Before Oprah's Big Give aired, a complaint was filed in Boston's U.S. District Court by Tracey that she hoped would prevent the show from airing, but the case was quickly dismissed when the attorneys for Oprah Winfrey said that Massachusetts was not the place to begin a legal battle.

But now Tracey has filed an appeal that includes documentation of her correspondence with the producers she had presented her idea to. She is now equipped with a team of lawyers, but Harpo feels that Tracey's case has no merit and that the Court of Appeals will agree with that.

Greenburg and Tracey's lawsuits are two of the most recent complaints that the talk show queen and her team of lawyers are fending off.

By Ginger Gillenwater