Hey, wait a minute, that guy’s not on our team!

We’ve all seen those sports blooper videos where a football player makes an interception or picks up a fumble and scrambles down the field, crosses the goal line, and spikes the ball – only to discover that he’s in the wrong end zone and has just put points on the board for the opposing team.

You can admire the nimble recovery and the fleet gallop to the goal, but you’re still left wondering, what just happened?

Imagine how the poor guy feels when he finally figures out why his heroic feat is being met by jeers not cheers – and realizes that it’s destined for blooper immortality.

The folks at State Auto Property and Casualty Company must have had a similar moment of horror when it suddenly dawned on them that a person they were defending in an insurance claim was not actually covered by the policy in question. Of course, in their case, the horror soon turned to seeking relief.

Michael Slusarek of Washington County, Pa., had just bought cigarettes at the drive-thru of a Kwik King Food Store on July 7, 2012, and was questioning the amount of change he had received when a man named Jordan Parker appeared at his driver’s side window outside the store, offering to help straighten out the matter.

Parker was soon throwing punches at him through the open window, according to a complaint.

A little over a year later, Slusarek filed suit against Jordan, the Kwik King, and the food store’s insurance company, State Auto, a case since removed to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.

At some point in the course of defending itself, the store and Parker against the suit, State Auto realized that Parker was not an employee of Kwik King. The insurer has since moved to have Parker’s status changed from defendant to plaintiff.

Jordan Parker’s not on their team, and neither he nor Michael Slusarek deserve help in trying to score.