Does Miss Colombia have legal claims for her public humiliation?

Dayna W. Thomas

My answer is no*.

I’m sure you already know about the shocking twist at the end of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. My role model, and first-time Miss Universe host, Steve Harvey, made the biggest mistake that one can make related to the pageant. He announced Miss Colombia as Miss Universe, she was crowned, given flowers, the crowd cheered…only to come back on stage to regrettably admit that he made a mistake and that Miss Philippines was the actual winner. Yikes! Take a look for yourself:

So as an attorney, naturally I immediately began to think of the legal claims that Miss Colombia may have for this unimaginable level of public humiliation.

When identifying possible claims for any situation, first, I normally put the incident into one of two categories: intentional or unintentional. Intentional actions (called intentional torts in the legal world) have a list of claims to choose from and unintentional…

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