OH-3: Stephanie Studebaker Back in Court

No commentary here, since, well...I worked on this one (prior to the big messy explosion). I'll let y'all judge it for yourselves.

Last year OH-3 candidate, Stephanie Studebaker, dropped out of the Congressional race in August of '06 after both she and her husband were jointly arrested for domestic violence. Those arrests were placed because her father-in-law, James Dale Studebaker, place a 9/11 call against her (per a request by his son), and she placed a call to 9/11 in return.

Now, one year later she's brought civil suit against her former father-in-law over that call. On Wednesday of last week court documents were filed in Montgomery County Court for defamation per se, defemation per quod, and interference with business relationships.

"At the time of the call the Plaintiff was the candidate endorsed by the Ohio Democratic Party in a race for the seat in the United States Congress for the Ohio Third Congressional District."

The entirety of the claim seems to rest on the fact that James Studebaker knew the position Stephanie was in, and knowingly acted reckless and/or maliciously to harm her through the call in her Congressional race, an upcoming divorce, and custody battle.

Stephanie is asking for... $2 million dollars in damages, $500,000 of which are compensatory damages (including the $322,000 two-year congressional salary she claims as lost income from the call), and $1.5 million in punitive damages.

Yup. The complaint's about 3 pages long, you can read it here.