Posted on 07/28/2022 5:20:52 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie
Supposedly they ignored warning signs like him saying he’s broke and didn’t check to see if he was fired before. You can’t ask that. All you can reveal is if someone worked a given time period. Supposedly the company ignored thefts by technicians. None of this gets me to $7b in damages. Sending her account to collections after she was murdered by their off duty employee is in poor taste but if she owed money than her estate had the obligation to pay. Her family made bank though. They got over $300 million from the jury. Smh. His life sentence better mean more than ten years and out.
He took his work van but wasn’t working that day.
If you can make the case but nothing in the article adds up to seven billion in my book
...During that civil trial it was also claimed Thomas’ family was charged $58 for Holden’s service call, and continued to be billed after their grandmother’s brutal slaying to the point where her account was sent to collections...
That right there would be enough for me to double the award to $14 Billion. Sending that account to collections is deserving of enough punitive damages to bankrupt the company.
Never underestimate the idiocy of some companies. After my MIL died we worked with the in-house manager of the retirement home where she lived and made arrangements for unit clean-up, mail forwarding, and so forth.
About 3 months later we got a call from someone up in the management company asking why Mrs. So-and-so moved out without giving 30 days notice. I told him "Because she died". He didn't have a good come back for that.
Or perhaps companies will have to do background checks on their employees they are sending into people's homes.
That is an option.
I used to send repair people into rental units. Every single one of them was checked out six ways from Sunday because I was sending them into people's homes. Where they slept. Where their children played.
If you are hiring for outside work you can be more flexible but when you are sending your people into homes under the color of your reputation you had better make sure they are not the type of person who will be inclined to rob and murder them.
Charter did not do this. Charter said, "Nah, it'll be fine."
There is a price for that kind of hubris
Jury needs to go to jail. If they won't take their job seriously, they need to be made examples of to encourage future juries to be serious.
There are no right circumstances for unserious awards. This alone would justify a mistrial in my mind.
A Jury that frivolous cannot be relied upon to actually weigh evidence.
Very much so, which is why all "punitive damages" should never be allowed to go to plaintiffs or lawyers, but should instead go to the state.
And the idea that the company should be punished for hiring a class that the FEDGOV constantly threatens them for not hiring, is ridiculous.
The FEDGOV is the one partially or perhaps even wholly responsible for this.
Beyond that, there is a principle in law regarding the liability of a company and it's employee.
The Company is responsible for the actions of an employee if the employee is doing something within the constraints of his job. Murdering people is clearly not part of the Job description and therefore represents an employee acting beyond the scope of his job.
He is an independent actor for this crime, not an "agent" of the company.
The company should have only some liability if there is evidence they knew this guy would murder someone, and then let him work for them anyway.
Exactly right.
And if I was the Judge I would toss you into jail for contempt of court.
Juries need to be broken from these ridiculous and completely unfair awards which they give out because they get their emotional panties in a twist. Being on a jury is a serious responsibility, and when people are acting like children playing with monopoly money instead of understanding that real people's lives are at stake, they need to be punished for not taking their task seriously.
The company is not liable for a man murdering someone just because he worked for them. Murdering people is not part of his job. If it were part of his job, then you might have a point, but because it wasn't, there is no way the company should be responsible for the acts of a depraved man who happened to work for them at the time he committed his crime.
[I could justify a ludicrous award like this under the right circumstances. Perhaps the jury was presented evidence that the company had done a background check on the mutant and knew he was a violent criminal, but hired him anyway.]
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