Posted on 07/31/2014 4:24:40 AM PDT by markomalley
A Brazos County jury on Wednesday awarded a $27 million in a lawsuit against McDonalds relating to the 2012 deaths of two Blinn College students. Jurors found McDonalds negligence to be 97 percent responsible for the deaths of Denton Ward, 18, of Flower Mound, and Lauren Bailey Crisp, 19, of Flower Mound, both of whom died in the early morning hours of Feb. 18, 2012.
The remaining 3 percent of liability was laid on the men who violently attacked Ward and his friend, Tanner Giesen, 21, in the parking lot of the McDonalds at 801 University Drive.
The jurys verdict reflects the argument plaintiffs attorneys made from the start of the seven-day trial: Had Ward and Giesen not been assaulted at the McDonalds, the car accident that occurred 11 minutes later while Samantha Bean, another friend, was attempting to get the men to the hospital would not have happened.
And because of a well-documented police record of fights and assaults at the University Drive McDonalds in the months leading up to the incident, store managers and corporate employees had a duty to hire security to protect patrons.
It was never disputed during the trial that Crisp died in the car accident, but jurors did hear conflicting conclusions from expert witnesses as to Wards cause of death.
Two experts who testified for the plaintiffs asserted Ward was killed from injuries suffered while being punched, kicked and stomped on at the McDonalds, while an expert for the defense who was the only witness called on by McDonalds insisted Ward was fatally injured in the car wreck.
The thing that sets all of this in motion, and thats the cause test, is McDonalds, said Chris Hamilton, lead plaintiff attorney, in closing arguments.
Hamilton and his co-counsels, Robert Langdon and Jon Miller, spent four days putting on evidence, with much of it focused on establishing a pattern of violence at the McDonalds and showing the subsequent lack of action taken by company employees.
Carlos Butler, a former McDonalds general manager and local hip-hop artist, said in a video deposition played for the jury that he was unaware of any of the 20-plus incidents police responded to from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. on the weekends in the 11 months leading up to Ward and Giesen being attacked even though he had been the one to call 911 in at least one instance.
Jurors also saw video testimony from several McDonalds corporate employees who denied having any knowledge of security issues at the location across from Texas A&M.
Its not about what [McDonalds] knew, its about what they didnt want to know, Hamilton told jurors. Their defense is, I didnt know anything about it.
McDonalds attorneys Marshall Rosenberg and Paul Murphy argued the decisions made by the dead teens and their friends were what led to Crisp and Ward dying.
Alcohol and consumption of alcohol by teenagers was the root cause, Murphy said. Im not going to do a disservice to anyone and agree to some alternate reality.
Prior to arriving at the McDonalds, all four of the friends had been at Hurricane Harrys drinking and left the bar in Wards 4Runner headed to McDonalds.
Once they arrived, Ward and Giesen went in to use the restroom while Crisp and Bean went through the drive-thru to avoid the large crowd of people, according to testimony.
When the women rounded the corner of the drive-thru, they saw their friends getting beaten, which is when Crisp jumped out to grab Ward, her boyfriend, as Giesen was carried to the car by two unknown women and Bean hopped into the drivers seat to try and get to the hospital.
In the minutes leading up to the accident, Bean had plenty of opportunity to stop and call for help, Murphy argued.
They want you to get good and angry at McDonalds, thats it, he said.
The lawsuit was filed by Wards mother, Denise Whitaker, and Crisps parents, Paul and Nicole Crisp, all of whom testified Friday about how their lives have been affected by the loss of their first-born children.
The jury awarded
$11 million to Whitaker and $11 million to the Crisps for past and future loss of companionship and mental anguish, in addition to $5 million for the pain and mental anguish suffered by Ward, money legally bound for Whitaker.
This wont bring the kids back, but it does validate how their parents felt in terms of McDonalds responsibility, Hamilton said after the verdict. I will tell my kids if they go to a McDonalds at night and they dont see an off-duty police officer, dont get out of the car.
Its expected McDonalds will appeal the verdict.
I’ll answer that. It makes some butt-ugly lawyer rich and important.
I bet it also gives the suits in Corporate a message they better police up their ghetto-centric franchises like what they had in Bryan.
“McDonalds had nothing at all to do with the kids deaths.”
The mgr was an aspiring hip hop dude that allowed his place to be a thug hang out. Just an hour before this incident, a ‘customer’ pulled a gun on another one. He was asked by mgt to take it outside.
Guess what—it’s still a mess at that place. Just some butt ugly lawyers all hot and jiggly after some money...
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