Thanks to a book titled Hell's Gate: The Terror at Bobby Mackey's Music World, which documents ghost sightings at Mackey's, the Newport, Kentucky nightclub has gained notoriety among thrill seekers. Intrigued, J.R. Costigen went to Mackey's on Halloween night, 1991, and, in the words of his complaint, "walked through different rooms of the nightclub daring and mocking the supposed ghost/ghosts to appear to him." Costigen claims he was subsequently attacked by a "dark man" who punched him in the face and kicked him as he lay on the ground. Then, Costigen says, the attacker "dissolved into the air."

Seeking $1,000 in damages, Costigen states that the nightclub is responsible for his injury because it failed to make the building safe from ghosts. Mackey realizes that "any publicity is good publicity," but he wishes the suit had never been filed. "I'm trying to run a respectable country music establishment here," he says. His attorney, Robert Lotz, says the case poses interesting legal challenges. "For one thing, there is no precedent for this kind of complaint," he says. Lotz asked for a motion to dismiss the case, based on a one-year statute of limitations. The actual motion, in keeping with what Lotz calls the "kooky" nature of the whole business, was delivered in verse:

But souls departed eschewing repose
Prove difficult for us lawyers to depose
And the sheriff will greet with rude demeanor
My request to serve a spook's subpoena
So to counter Petitioner's claim phantasmal
I turn to the law for relief substantial
The one year statute of limitations
Applies to injuries by permutations

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