Encarnacion seeks dismissal of lawsuit by family friend
Lawyers for Blue Jays first baseman Edwin Encarnacion have asked a New York court to throw out a $11.5-million lawsuit by a 24-year-old woman who claims Encarnacion knowingly infected her with two sexually transmitted diseases earlier this year in the Dominican Republic.
Filed Tuesday, before Encarnacion drove in two runs for the Blue Jays in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, the motion calls on the court to dismiss the woman’s claims both on jurisdictional and factual grounds.
The lawsuit was filed in August by Ashley Lebron, a family friend of Encarnacion who grew up in the Dominican Republic across the street from Encarnacion’s aunt. She alleges Encarnacion knowingly infected her with genital herpes and chlamydia when they had unprotected sex in February at Encarnacion’s home in the Dominican. She filed her lawsuit in New York, where she lives.
Encarnacion’s lawyers argue the appropriate jurisdiction for the claim is the Dominican, but also that Lebron failed to provide any evidence that it was Encarnacion who infected her and that he did so knowingly.
“The complaint is devoid of a single fact supporting her conclusory allegations that the defendant knew or should have known that he had herpes and/or chlamydia,” the motion reads.
Lebron has claimed damages for past and future medical care as well as mental anguish and emotional and physical suffering. She alleges Encarnacion invited her to his home in the Dominican, where, after a night of drinking and smoking marijuana, they had unprotected sex on Feb. 13. On the night in question, Lebron claims Encarnacion was “aware” that she “had too much to drink and that her judgment (was) impaired.”
Two days later, on Feb. 15, Lebron says they once again had unprotected sex at Encarnacion’s house. When she returned to New York a few days later Lebron says she was diagnosed with genital herpes and chlamydia.
Encarnacion does not dispute that he and Lebron had sex on multiple occasions at his home in February, but his motion says the facts “do not even remotely suggest anything other than consensual sex between two sexually active adults.”