DENVER -- A man suing The Home Depot over a toilet seat allegedly covered with glue is being identified as the same man who made a similar allegation more than a year ago, about a toilet in his own hometown, the Rocky Mountain News reported in its Tuesday editions.

But the man's lawyer is denying he ever made such a claim. (Click here to see attorney's news release.)

Bob Dougherty, 57, filed a $3 million lawsuit against the world's largest home improvement chain last month. The suit alleges he suffered pain, humiliation and financial loss when workers at a local store ignored his cries for help. Dougherty said that during the incident two years ago, store employees ignored his calls for help and failed to maintain the bathrooms by not stocking paper toilet seat covers.

Nederland, Colorado's former director of operations, Ron Trzepacz, told the Rocky Mountain News that Dougherty came to him with a similar report in the summer of 2004 -- but that the man had pulled himself free from the toilet at a visitors' center.

Dougherty's attorney, Mark S. Cohen, said Trzepacz's claim "doesn't make any sense."

In a news release, Cohen said that his client never claimed to have been stuck in a toilet seat at the Nederland Visitor's Center, and is eager to take a polygraph arranged and paid for by a news agency or TV station.

The Home Depot is headquartered in Atlanta, and describes itself as the second-largest retailer in the country -- with sales of more than $73 billion during fiscal year 2004.

The company has nearly 2,000 stores and 325,000 employees across the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada.