A man from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania was at the Penthouse Club in Port Richmond for the ‘Bachelor’s Package.’ The package offers the guest the chance to sit onstage with the dancers. A lawsuit filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court last week claims that the man, Patrick Gallagher, suffered internal bleeding at the club. Gallagher is from Lansdale. He claims that a dancer slid down a pole and landed on top of him with force strong enough to rupture his bladder.
Gallagher said the incident occurred in November of 2010 at the club’s location on Castor Avenue and Balfour Street. His attorney, Neil T. Murray, said the man was in attendance to celebrate his upcoming marriage. Because of the bachelor’s package he was brought up on stage and told to lie on his back underneath the stripper pole. Murray said that one of the strippers climbed up the pole and then “from a great height, she launched herself down onto his abdomen.”
Gallagher was suffering so much pain that he left the club with his friends almost immediately. Gallagher was in so much pain the next morning that he went to the hospital, which is where doctors diagnosed him with a ruptured bladder. He needed surgery to repair the bladder problem. According to Murray, Gallagher suffered nerve damage in his hip and back from the incident.
The club has been accused of negligence in the lawsuit, which is asking for $50,000 in pain, medical costs, mental anguish and humiliation. This is not the first lawsuit filed against the club over the past couple of years. Other lawsuits against the club include bouncers beating customers, too much alcohol being served, an injury from a slip-and-fall and advertisements for the club featuring a woman’s photographs. In November of 2011, a manager and seven dancers were arrested by police on prostitution charges.