At Large : Dueling Lawsuits: How American Can You Get?

When the tenants’ newsletter at Sunshine Acres Mobile Estates in Fallbrook stuck to grousing about laundry room hours, rent increases and maintenance problems, the mobile home park’s owner put up with it.

But when it seemed to impugn her patriotism, and that of her manager’s husband, she struck back with a million-dollar libel suit against the newsletter editor, the editor’s husband and two contributors.

“I climbed over the Berlin Wall to escape the communists and find freedom, and it’s not fair for people to say I’m not a good American,” said park owner Penny Statescu, 52, a native of Romania who came to the United States in 1962 and became a naturalized citizen in 1968. “It’s not right what they’re saying about me.”

The passage that offended Statescu came in a column in the August newsletter written by tenant Tom Sobanski, 50, a retired Marine staff sergeant. He had feuded with Statescu for months over her alleged slowness in providing an American flag to fly over the park.

“Speaking of the flag,” Sobanski wrote, “it seems to me that the owner should have been the one to produce an American flag for her ‘adopted’ country. Or is it that she thinks so little of the USA? Maybe her idea of a flag includes a hammer and sickle?”

In the September edition, Sobanski wrote that Robert Walker, husband of park manager Norma Walker, “supposedly . . . is a veteran, but I am wondering of which East Bloc army?” The libel suit says Walker is a U. S. Air Force veteran of World War II and Korea.

San Diego attorney George Bye, who represents Statescu and the Walkers, said he is prepared to argue in Vista Superior Court that a charge of being soft on patriotism is particularly damaging in North County.

“In El Cajon or Jamul, something like that might not mean anything,” Bye said. “But in conservative North County, and particularly in Fallbrook, with the military base nearby, being thought of as not a full American can be disastrous to someone’s business reputation.”

Sobanski denies that Statescu has been hurt by the newsletter but declines further comment. Even within those constraints, however, he finds a way to express his opinion.

“Do I think Sunshine Acres Mobile Estates is a good place to live?” Sobanski asks. “I’m not going to answer that. If I said that it i s not a nice park, I’d be slandering the park. If I said it is a nice park, I’d be perjuring myself.”

Fallbrook attorney Paul Leehey, who represents newsletter Editor Jan Fullerton and her husband, John, claims the libel suit is without merit. He notes that John Fullerton, a self-employed truck driver, is suing Statescu over leg injuries received in a fall at the park.

“This whole thing has gotten very bitter,” Leehey said.

Judge Don Martinson has set Dec. 5 to decide whether to issue an order restricting what the newsletter can print. Since the lawsuit was filed, the newsletter’s mimeograph has fallen silent.

Burning Up the Highways

Proof that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive:

Suntan lotion isn’t getting any cheaper, so Wolfred Freeman, 71, a retired stockbroker from Brookline, Mass., now living in San Marcos, has invented the Sun Guard Sleeve to keep you from getting a sunburn while hanging an arm out the window on a long car trip.

It’s 100% cotton, unisex, ambi-arm, machine washable, with a thumb slot and an optional slot on the forearm for a 3-by-5 message card. All for $9.95 from Wolf of California, Freeman’s mail-order business.

“I want to take the burn out of traveling,” Freeman said. “Nothing is worse than arriving at your destination with a fried arm.”

Chases Are Chic

The latest rage among the high-speed set in North County is a kind of souped-up motorcycle known as a “crotch rocket.”

Chases are becoming all too frequent on Interstate 5 and major surface streets as cyclists flee from patrol cars, says Jerry Bohrer, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Oceanside.

“Speed seems to be making a comeback,” Bohrer said. “At least once a week, we get into a pursuit with one of these motorcycles. It didn’t used to be that way.”