advances in litigation
New York Post [Page Six] - March 11, 2007
Dentist Drilling Lidle Estate
MELANIE Lidle lost her husband last Oct. 11 when Yankee pitcher Cory
Lidle crashed his plane into 524 E. 72nd St. Christopher Lidle, 6,
lost his father.
But celebrity dentist Dr. Larry Rosenthal and his wife, Sandra, say
they lost their clothes and furniture when the plane struck the high-
rise building 13 floors below their 43rd floor apartment - and they
want Lidle’s estate to pay for them.
“A wing of the airplane went through their window,” their lawyer,
David Jaroslawicz, explained to Page Six.
Rosenthal - who is as expert at extracting cash from insurance
companies as he is with impacted molars - has sued Lidle’s estate for
$5 million in compensatory damages, plus $2 million for their “mental
anguish and distress.”
While the Rosenthals’ suffering might be minimal compared to that of
Lidle’s widow and her grieving little boy, Jaroslawicz said, “There’s
the nuisance of being thrown out of your apartment, having to go out
and buy clothes. It’s an inconvenience.”
The lawyer stressed that the Rosenthals’ payoff wouldn’t come from
Lidle’s survivors, but from an insurance company, just like the
$85,000 Rosenthal collected after he sued himself in 2003. Rosenthal
- whose patients have included Donald Trump, Bruce Springsteen,
Christie Brinkley and Catherine Zeta-Jones - was driving his Vespa in
the Hamptons that summer when his son, Eric, then 11, fell off the
back of the scooter and broke his wrist.
The dutiful father hired a lawyer so his son could sue the driver -
himself. When we broke the story of Rosenthal vs. Rosenthal two years
ago, the dentist’s rep said, “The money awarded to the son, who is a
minor, was used to cover his medical bills and the remainder is in a
trust, of which the father is not a trustee, and will be used toward
his college education.”
Jaroslawicz assured us that the Rosenthals are not the only residents
of the damaged apartment building who will be suing Lidle’s estate.
“Numerous claims are in the process of being filed,” he said. “There
is no excuse for smacking a plane into an apartment building in the
middle of Manhattan.”
Hopefully, Melanie Lidle will have enough money left to send
Christopher to college.