Have you ever been pulled over by police for what you thought was an unwarranted traffic stop? A Pennsylvania woman was so put off by a trooper's actions that she's attempting to sue him for wrongly pulling her over and ticketing her.

The woman was pulled over Halloween morning of 2009 on her way home from the tavern she owned. She told the state trooper she had spent the night at a casino in New Jersey but had not been drinking. The trooper, however, reported that the driver smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes and failed a field sobriety test. He asked her to take a blood test, but didn't ticket her for drunk driving. He did, however, issue tickets for littering and sitting too long at a flashing yellow light.

The blood test later proved the driver hadn't been drinking, and the tickets issued to her were dismissed. She responded by filing a lawsuit, claiming that the state trooper's actions were in retaliation for her family's outspoken criticism of police traffic stop methods in their area. Two of her brothers, one of whom was a township supervisor, had written newspaper commentaries saying police were overzealous in their methods of enforcing traffic violations.

Her lawyer compared her situation to "The Dukes of Hazzard," a TV show in which a small-town sheriff constantly files false charges against a family he considers his nemeses. Regardless of whether he was retaliating, the lawyer said, the lawsuit should continue so a jury can decide whether the traffic stop was justified. The trooper's attorney, meanwhile, argued that the bar owner can't prove the trooper even knew about the commentaries, which were published long before he started patrolling the area, and that she can't assert First Amendment right for the newspaper commentaries.

The bar owner did acknowledge that she'd thrown her cigarette out the window and was stopped for a long time at the light because her dog had knocked over her purse and she wanted to pick up its contents. But the trooper didn't want to hear her reasoning, she said. What's more, she said, he made things harder on her by forcing her to take the blood test (refusal to do so could have cost her her driver's license) and handcuffing her under false pretenses.

A judge heard these arguments last week and didn't specify when he would rule on whether the lawsuit should go forward. Although he encouraged both parties to give mediation another try, it's likely that this traffic stop issue will remain at a standstill until the ruling.

Source: WJACTV.com, "Judge hears arguments in Pa. sober stop lawsuit," Joe Mandak, Dec. 5, 2011