Alec Baldwin's Yoga Instructor-Wife, Hilaria Thomas, Faces Lawsuit - East Idaho News
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Alec Baldwin’s Yoga Instructor-Wife, Hilaria Thomas, Faces Lawsuit

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Getty E 021813 AlecHilariaBaldwin?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1361228172199Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Alec Baldwin’s wife, popular New York City yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas, is being sued by a former student who alleges that overcrowding during one of her classes caused him to suffer serious injury.

Spencer Wolff, 32, alleges in the complaint that Thomas’ Jan. 15 class at Yoga Vida was so crowded that he was forced to take a spot near a window. Wolff’s attorney, Paul Weitz, told ABC News that while trying to dismount from a handstand, his client “lost his balance and his leg went through the window.”

“Honestly, he severed his leg really severely,” Weitz said. “The muscle in his calf is seriously injured to the point where he really cannot use his ankle at all.”

Weitz said Wolff, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Yale’s Comparative Literature Department, who also holds degrees from Harvard College, Columbia Law School and Paris’ Sorbonne, “has what’s known as a dropped foot.”

While he could not specify an amount, Weitz said Wolff is seeking “a substantial amount of damages.”

“He can’t flex his ankle, nor can he move it from side to side,” Weitz said.

“He shouldn’t have been instructed to do it at this close proximity to the window, certainly with the amount of people in the room,” Weitz said. “You would think they would anticipate that not everybody’s going to be doing the exercise perfectly every time.”

 

The suit, which was filed Feb. 15 in Manhattan Supreme Court, names Thomas, as well as Yoga Vida and 99 University Corp., which owns the building where the Yoga Vida is located.

“We’re not really sure at this time [the building] had a permit to even be conducting exercise classes at this kind of space,” Weitz said.

A woman who answered the phone at 99 University Corp. told ABC News “we’ve not been served or filed.”

Yoga Vida’s owner, who employs Thomas as an instructor, has not responded to a request for comment.

The Baldwins’ spokesman on Monday said, “It’s unfortunate [Wolff] was injured but the only one that was responsible was him.”

Weitz said Wolff is under the care of a doctor, but there is “a possibility he will need surgery in the future depending on how he heals.”

“It’s nothing personal, you know? Whoever the instructor was, they would have been named. She happens to be a famous person. But if this was Jane Smith, instructor – Jane Smith would have been named,” Weitz said.

Meanwhile, Thomas’ husband, actor Alec Baldwin, has responded on Twitter in defense of his wife.

“1 – the class was, IN NO WAY, ‘dangerously crowded.” 42 in a class w room for 70,” he wrote Sunday.

Baldwin has also found himself in hot water with the New York Post. The paper reported the 30 Rock actor allegedly “called a black Post photographer a racial epithet” in New York’s East Village Sunday morning.

Again, Baldwin took to Twitter to respond to the Post‘s allegations.

“Thank u 2 NYPD officers who came 2 my home 2day so that I could file a formal complaint against NY Post ‘photographer’ who assaulted me,” he posted Sunday night.

“The claim of racist remarks is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard in my life,” Baldwin said on Monday through his spokesman.

Baldwin and Thomas recently announced they are expecting their first child.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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