Astronaut Steve Austin (Lee Majors) became known as the “Six Million Dollar Man” after being severely injured in an aviation accident and put back together with pricey bionic body parts. Why anyone thought he was worth spending $6,000,000 on was not adequately explained during the five seasons of the 1970s TV series, but who would ever question the federal government’s use of taxpayer funds?
Of course, the bionically enhanced Austin had superhuman speed, strength, and vision, and that’s worth something. Obviously, it would not cost that much to repair an ordinary person and restore him to a reasonable facsimile of his unenhanced status-quo-ante self.
We don’t know if Miguel Vasquez works as a secret agent for the Office of Scientific Intelligence alongside Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar Man and Jaime Sommers the Bionic Woman, but we do know that he’s asking for as much as $5 million to repair the foot that was allegedly injured when a Home Depot employee accidentally dropped a bag of concrete mix on it.
That must be some foot. Did it allow him to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Could he bend it like Beckham? Did he model for toenail polish photo shoots?
If the foot was that valuable, he should have had it insured by Lloyd’s of London. But Home Depot can be thankful that Vasquez’s other foot wasn’t injured. That would be a $10 million lawsuit. And the company can be doubly thankful that he’s not a quadruped.
Whatever the explanation, Vasquez has filed suit in Harris County District Court against the Home Depot on Dickson Road in Houston, seeking extravagant compensation for the alleged damage to his fabulous foot.
Assuming that the Home Depot employee did drop a bag of concrete mix on his foot and he really was injured, Vasquez might be entitled to reasonable compensation for medical expenses and associated losses, but $5 million?
If he wasn’t a Five Million Dollar Man before, why should Home Depot foot the bill to make him one?