Harry Reid files suit against exercise companies over eye injury

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, 75, talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, for the first time since he suffered an eye injury and broken ribs on New Year’s Day accident while exercising at his home in Henderson.

By Kyle Roerink

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015 | 12:29 p.m.

Less than a year after suffering an eye injury while exercising with an elastic band, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid is suing the three exercise companies that manufacture the TheraBand that snapped and lacerated his face for negligence.

Reid and his personal attorney, James M. Morgan, filed a complaint in the Clark Country District Court to take action against Hygenic Intangible Property Holding Company, the Hygenic Corporation and Performace Health LLC.

The complaint, first reported by the Las Vegas Law Blog, alleges that Reid, 75, suffered damages exceeding $50,000 and that the companies were responsible for manufacturing a “defective” product. The complaint says that the “TheraBand broke or slipped out of Mr. Reid’s hand, causing him to spin around and strike his face on a cabinet.” It goes on to allege that the “defendants knew or had constructive knowledge that TheraBands were dangerous for use by the elderly” and that the “accident occurred solely as a result of the carelessness, recklessness, negligence and culpable conduct of defendants."

At the time, it was rumored that Reid’s eye injury was the result of a fight with his brother, Larry, an allegation that its source a Las Vegas man named Larry Pfeifer, later admitted was “false.” Reid has subsequently been wearing clear eyeglass frames that fashion bloggers have described as normcore.