Lawyer agrees to pay former Miss Nevada $30,000

Bill Gang

Monday, Feb. 8, 1999 | 10:43 a.m.

Las Vegas lawyer Gerald Gillock agreed to pay $30,000 to a former Miss Nevada to settle a lawsuit she filed after her face was slashed during a luncheon in 1994.

A March 29 trial is still set in the lawsuit Karen Salamon filed against Gillock's former wife, country-western songwriter Janice Gillock, who is alleged to have pushed a water glass into Salamon's face in a fit of jealousy.

The glass broke, and Salamon, who was Miss Nevada-Universe 1969 as Karen Esslinger, suffered a broken nose and cuts deep enough to require 29 stitches.

Shards of broken glass ripped through her face and even chiseled pieces of bone from her jaw. One cut severed a nerve in her upper lip that left her with impaired feeling and sometimes affected her speech.

Janice Gillock did not intend to injure Salamon, Gillock's lawyer, Kathy England, said in court Thursday.

"Janice Gillock intended she end up wet, not cut," England said. "The intent was to embarrass her. She was upset to find her husband in a restaurant with another woman."

England said the injury was caused when Gerald Gillock reached out with his hand in an attempt to divert the path of the water glass.

In approving Gerald Gillock's settlement offer, District Judge Mark Gibbons said that it will be difficult for Janice Gillock to claim the injury was the result of negligence, because attempting to douse Salamon with water constitutes intentional battery.

Janice Gillock, 44, had been charged with a felony count of battery with substantial bodily harm, but the criminal case was tossed out by a district judge.

Gregory Hafen, lawyer for Gerald Gillock, said Gerald agreed to the settlement even though a jury likely would have decided he was not a guilty party in the incident.

Salamon's attorney, Bill Terry, had alleged in the lawsuit that the confrontation was foreseeable and Gillock should have told her about his wife.

The Gillocks are divorced now, but there is a question whether they were separated at the time of the incident. Gerald Gillock claims they were but Janice Gillock stated in a deposition that they were still together.

Salamon, an operating room nurse in Phoenix who had modeled on the side, said in a 1995 interview that the attack was "unprovoked, unjustified and unforgivable."

Gillock was the first man Salamon had dated after her 21-year marriage ended, and she was on her third date with him when the incident occurred at the Chapala Mexican restaurant on East Tropicana Avenue.