If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.



Lindsay Lohan is doing as much to a litigiously-inclined bus boy, filing a countersuit Thursday against Raymond Ortega, the man who filed a negligence suit against the actress this summer, alleging she was intoxicated when she crashed into his car two years ago.

The recently rehabbed Lohan filed her own suit against Ortega in Los Angeles Superior Court last week, exactly one month after a judge rejected a request by her lawyers to dismiss the suit altogether. She claims that Ortega, along with an unspecified number of defendants that have yet to be named, were the ones to blame in the headline-grabbing smashup.

The 21-year-old is seeking $75,000 from the bus boy, considerably less than the $200,000 he's seeking in his suit, claiming he was "negligent in the ownership, operation, repairs and maintenance" of his van.

The damages she's seeking account for the cost of the repairs to her car, a black Mercedes-Benz SL65, the cost of renting other vehicles and hospital stays. Following the accident, which took place Oct. 5, 2005 on the erstwhile celeb-friendly shopping enclave of Robertson Boulevard, Lohan complained of leg and back pain and was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

In Ortega's lawsuit, filed in June, he claims the then 19-year-old rammed into his car after a boozy lunch at the nearby Ivy restaurant, going so far as to name the establishment as a defendant in his suit. Lohan and her lawyers have long denied that any alcohol had been consumed by the actress on that day and in fact claim in their own court papers that Ortega is attempting to trade on her recent headline-grabbing exploits, using the drunk-driving accusation "as a battering ram to force a settlement."

A report filed by the California Highway Patrol the day of the accident supports Lohan's claims, stating that alcohol was not only not a factor in the crash, but that Ortega was to blame for the incident. Ortega, meanwhile, calls the CHP report "hearsay."

In her court papers, Lohan said she was heading north on the paparazzi-lined street at the legal limit of 30 mph, when Ortega made an illegal U-turn in front of her. She claims she was unable to stop in time and ended up hitting his van, which in turn hit another van that had been parked on the street.

Ortega's lawyer, Robert Klein, paints a less negligent picture of the incident, claiming his client was simply pulling into a parking space across the street when, halfway through his turn, he was struck by Lohan. Klein also alleged in his court papers filed over the summer that he has witnesses who claim the actress was driving not at 30 mph, but a whopping 62, and that there is "some evidence" that she had imbibed alcohol during her Ivy lunch.

A trial for both lawsuits has been set for Apr. 7, 2008.

Meanwhile, the actress is due back in Los Angeles today to begin shooting her new movie, Dare to Love Me.

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