Jerry McDevitt, the World Wrestling Entertainment's longtime lawyer, is accusing Martha Hart of twisting the truth.
Hart, widow of wrestler Owen Hart, who died following a failed stunt in 1999, is suing the WWE and Linda and Vince McMahon to stop the sale of a videotape featuring her husband's image. She issued a statement yesterday saying the company filed a lawsuit against her because she "had the nerve" to pursue a wrongful death claim following her husband's death.
Not true, McDevitt said this afternoon. WWE didn't sue her because she brought the wrongful death claim, he said. It did, however, petition a court in Connecticut to hear the claim, instead of the Missouri court where Hart had filed her lawsuit, which was settled before going to trial.
McDevitt objects to the insinuation that WWE coldly sought to deny Hart and her children compensation. In fact, he said, immediately after the accident the company offered to settle "out of humanitarian reasons...[WWE] loved the guy and didn't want to see any harm come to [Hart's] family.''
McDevitt denounced Hart's comments as "pejorative nonsense" and said her current lawsuit is nothing more than "a personal attack" on Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon.