ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996                TAG: 9606240055
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER 

WREN-KILLER AND HER TENANT SETTLE

JUDY WOODY, a Roanoke landlady, and tenant Ruby Campagna opted to resolve things out of court.

Lawyers have reached an out-of-court settlement in the case of a bird-stomping landlady accused of traumatizing an elderly tenant by destroying a nestful of baby birds outside the woman's apartment.

Last year, a Roanoke jury ordered Judy Woody and South Roanoke Apartment Village to pay $135,000 to Ruby Campagna, who testified that Woody knocked a nest of wrens from the wind chimes outside her apartment and stomped the tiny birds to death.

But Circuit Judge Richard Pattisall threw out $100,000 in compensatory damages for Campagna's psychiatric bills and pain and suffering, siding with arguments by Woody's lawyers that the verdict was excessive.

Pattisall let stand $35,000 in punitive damages, and a trial had been scheduled for this week for a new jury to consider how much Campagna should receive in compensatory damages.

But after the trial was postponed, lawyers said they had reached a settlement.

John Edwards, a Roanoke lawyer who represented Campagna, said the terms of the settlement were confidential.

Testimony at the earlier trial had shown that Campagna, a bird lover, was delighted to find two wrens had nested on some wind chimes hanging from her apartment patio in the spring of 1993.

Unknown to Campagna and the wrens, Woody had a policy of destroying nests throughout the complex because of damage caused by the birds.

Campagna testified that an irate Woody showed up at her apartment and knocked the nest down. Her lawsuit claimed that Woody then stepped on the birds and twisted her shoes "in order to mutilate and mangle their tiny bodies in front of [Campagna].''

All the while, the suit said, Woody stared at the woman "with a malevolent scowl on her face."

Woody's lawyers have said that she did not realize the nest was occupied at the time she knocked it down, and that she then decided to kill the birds to end their suffering.

Witnesses testified that Campagna was so upset by what she witnessed that she required psychiatric care for symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.

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