David Cooperfield
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Accidents and injuries
* On March 11, 1984, while rehearsing an illusion called "Escape from Death" where he was shackled and handcuffed in a tank of water, Copperfield became tangled in the chains and started taking in water and banging into the sides of the tank. He was pulled from the water after 1 minute 20 seconds, hyperventilating and in shock, and taken to a Burbank hospital, and found to have pulled tendons in arms and legs. He was in a wheelchair for a week and used a cane for a period thereafter.
* Doing a rope trick, Copperfield accidentally cut off the tip of his finger with sharp scissors. He was rushed to hospital and the fingertip was re-attached.
* On December 17, 2008, during a live performance in Las Vegas, one of Copperfield's assistants was sucked into the spinning blades of a 12 feet (3.7 m) high industrial fan that Copperfield "walks through." The assistant sustained multiple fractures to his arm, lacerations that required stitching, and severe bleeding. Copperfield canceled the rest of the performance and offered the audience members refunds.
Litigation
On July 11, 1994 Copperfield sued magician and author Herbert L. Becker in order to prevent publication of Becker's book, which reveals how magicians do their tricks. Becker won the law suit. However, the book was published without exposing any of Copperfield's secrets. Because of a secrecy agreement Becker had signed with Copperfield, and an independent finding that Becker's description of Copperfield's methods was inaccurate, the publisher removed the section on Copperfield from the book before publication.
On August 25, 2000 Copperfield unsuccessfully sued Fireman's Fund Insurance Company for reimbursement of a $506,343 ransom paid to individuals in Russia who had commandeered the entertainer's equipment there.
In 2004, John Melk, co-founder of Blockbuster Inc., and previous owner of Musha Cay, sued Copperfield for fraud after Copperfield's purchase of the island chain, alleging that Copperfield had deliberately obscured his identity during the purchase and that he would not have sold the island to Copperfield. Copperfield claimed that Melk had agreed to sell the property to Copperfield's Imagine Nation Company, and that Copperfield negotiated the deal through a third party because he feared Melk was "seeking to exploit" Copperfield's celebrity status by demanding an unrealistic price. The case was settled in 2006. The terms of the settlement are undisclosed.
On November 6, 2007, Viva Art International Ltd and Maz Concerts Inc. sued Copperfield for nearly $2.2 million for breach of contract. Copperfield has countersued the promoters.
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