Faulk wins case but pays a price with loss of image

[Gunzlingr]

The weeklong, public inquisition was finally over, and now Marshall Faulk lingered in the hallway outside his attorney's Clayton office, loosened his tie and leaned against a polished paneled wall. All around him, folks were hugging each other. All around him, everyone was smiling, joking, laughing.

But Faulk seemed a little detached from it all. He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and let out the deep sigh of a man who seemed more relieved than happy. A few hours earlier, a 12-member jury spent less than two hours deliberating the civil suit by his former girlfriend, Helen Dunne, who accused him of physical abuse. She was hoping to be awarded millions of dollars in damages. Instead, around 1:45 p.m., she walked out the front door of the St. Louis County Courthouse with nothing but a smile.

The jury not only unanimously ruled in favor of the Rams running back, it said Dunne owed him $125 for his troubles.

So now Faulk had won. But the victory had come with a price

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[Gunzlingr]

Helen Dunne, who pressed a domestic battery lawsuit after onetime fiance Marshall Faulk refused to pay her $3 million to settle quietly, walked out of court Monday owing him $125.

Jurors needed less than two hours to reject all six counts of Dunne's case and to find in favor of a counterclaim by the Rams star running back that she had abused the legal process.

He had sought a symbolic $1 in damages but was awarded $125, which is the cost of filing a suit in St. Louis County Circuit Court.

Faulk implied while talking to reporters later that he would not have settled the case for any amount. "It's just me," he said. "It's how I was raised. I faced up to the challenge."

Dunne, who still will collect about $25,000 a month in child support and expenses for bearing three of Faulk's sons, said she was "not as upset as I thought I would be."

She also reaffirmed in an interview that all three are Faulk's children; a former baby sitter testified last week that Dunne told her one of them was not.

Because of the suit, Dunne said, Faulk "will think very long and very hard before he raises his hands to me or any other woman

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[TypicalBill]

Most veterans simply endure minicamps. For running back Marshall Faulk, though, the start of the Rams' first and only minicamp felt like a new beginning.

Faulk said he was happy to return to the field Friday, four days after a jury ruled in his favor in a civil suit filed by former girlfriend Helen Dunne, who claimed domestic abuse.

"You guys heard from me in a sense that you probably never would hear from me," Faulk said of testimony in St. Louis County Court. "I was looking forward to this week, being around the guys and getting a feel for what the new team would be like because that's who we are. We're a new team; we've got a lot of new faces."

He welcomed the chance to see teammates new and old. The time away was prolonged this year, because the Rams missed the playoffs for the first time in Faulk's tenure in St. Louis.



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[Cntrygal]

:eek:

$25,000 a month?!?!

[The_Philster]

I wouldn't be upset to collect that. :snicker:

[The_Philster]

A jury ruled Marshall Faulk was not financially accountable to a woman who accused him of domestic battery in a civil suit last week.

Let's make that perfectly clear.

Let's also make something else clear. He is accountable for being in physical confrontations with a woman. He is accountable for fathering children out of wedlock with three women. And he is accountable for advancing the stereotype and the serious problem of absentee fatherhood in the black community.

Contrary to what some athletes and politically sensitive observers might put forth, he is accountable for being a role model. ...more (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/Sports/Rams/73BD4D270739AC6D86256D2A00148095?OpenDocument&Headline=Role+models+can't+roll+away+from+accountability)