[Mark Padgett]

I almost fell off my chair during lunch today when a case came on People's Court involving two local officials. One was suing the other for not paying him for working some games last summer. The ref being sued (uh, let's just call him Skip - no, he's not Skippy Weaselpants) contracted with a coach to provide officials for a local kids summer league. Apparently, there are two coaches who run this league and the other coach had already contacted a few officials to work some of the games. It gets a quite confusing at this point. Skip assigned a guy to work some games with him, but this other ref (who had been assigned the games by the coach) also showed up. According to him, Skip told him to go ahead and work the games and Skip would pay him. They went ahead and worked the games together.

Skip's defense was that the money paid to him to distribute did not include money for the refs who were assigned by the coach. However, the judge concluded that Skip received that amount of money in the check cut to him by the "non-assigning" coach and he should have paid this ref. There was a copy of a letter from that coach to that effect which was presented as evidence by the ref who was suing.

The judge also really got on Skip's case and practically called him a thief for withholding the money.

Man, I gotta tell ya' - it was really weird seeing these guys on that show. I've known Skip for years and have worked quite a few games with him. I don't know the other guy well, but I think I may have worked with him a little a few years ago. Maybe not. I can't remember everyone.