Posted on 08/13/2014 7:34:45 AM PDT by Morgana
Wendy Davis has released a new campaign ad attacking Greg Abbott for how he sided in an old state Supreme Court case. A woman was raped by a contractor for the Kirby vacuum cleaner company, and she and her husband sued Kirby — the rapist was a sexual predator, and Kirby had not run a background check on the salesman. Abbott, who was a state Supreme Court justice at the time, was one of three dissenting opinions, and felt that Kirby was not responsible.
In the ad, Davis insinuates that a company should be held responsible for the actions of their employees.
March 26, 1993. A pleasant spring day in Seguin, Texas. But for one woman, it quickly became a nightmare. A Kirby Vacuum salesman came to her door to offer an in-home demonstration. And while her children slept in the very next room the salesman brutally raped the young mother.
The salesman was a sexual predator on probation… but the Kirby vacuum cleaner distributor had failed to perform a routine background check on him.
The woman and her husband went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. Fighting for their right to sue Kirby. Six judges – Democrats and Republicans – ruled in their favor and they won.
But Greg Abbott sided with the company against the victim. Saying the company had no responsibility.
Thank god, this time… Greg Abbott lost.
Abbott is currently enjoying a double-digit lead over Davis, which may be why she felt the need to exploit the rape of a woman as campaign fodder. But perhaps she should have looked in the mirror first, if she truly cared that much about protecting women from rape.
Wendy Davis has firmly established herself as a diehard supporter of abortion, and abortion activists have responded in kind by supporting her campaign. Planned Parenthood in particular has been throwing their weight behind her, pledging $3 million to get Davis elected. So here’s a question: why is it unthinkable for Greg Abbott to feel that Kirby wasn’t responsible for the actions of one of their employees, yet it’s completely acceptable for Wendy Davis to accept millions from the abortion industry, with its extensive history of covering up for child rapists?
Live Action’s undercover investigations have repeatedly shown that Planned Parenthood is more than willing to cover up child sex trafficking and statutory rape. But sadly, there are multiple real-life examples of abortionists and clinic workers looking the other way, with girls that aren’t undercover actors.
Indiana abortionist Ulrich Klopfer was caught covering up the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.
A Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia was found to have hidden the statutory rape of six young girls.
20-year-old Stephen Lobb raped a 14-year-old girl, and then forced her to get an abortion.
40-year-old Adam Gault abducted Danielle Cramer, a teenaged girl, and held her captive for over a year. When she got pregnant, he took her to Planned Parenthood, where they performed the abortion and handed her back to Gault, no questions asked.
An 11-year-old girl was raped by her 17-year-old boyfriend, and Planned Parenthood likewise performed an abortion on her without reporting the abuse, and a 13-year-old girl was impregnated by her stepfather and also forced into an abortion.
Or in a particularly horrific instance, Planned Parenthood assisted serial rapist Tyler Kost in covering up his crimes with abortion, because they “didn’t want the hassle” of having to notify police.
But Wendy Davis has absolutely no problem whatsoever with taking millions from Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates. So what is the price of her integrity, exactly? Does it have to be in the millions, or will a few thousands of dollars do? Does her slavish devotion to abortion run so deep that she’ll overlook the rape coverups that are endemic to the abortion industry?
Abortion Barbie ping.
Go away, you bleach-blong phony. You are an embarrassment to Texas. Go back to Rhode Island where they appreciate your kind.
Sorry…that would be”bleach-blond”
She’s a carpet bagger from Rhode Island? I did not know this!
The Abortion Barbie needs to find herself another Sugar-Daddy and hide in shame.
Think of this.
Abortion Barbie is the best the demonrat party can run for governor.
Wendy Davis actually thinks by falsely pushing one case it will somehow brush her abortion record of support completely out of the way. She is nuts.
Abortion Barbie doing a commercial trying to tie her opponent to a sexual crime is abhorrent.
I have seen the Wendy Davis ad. It is running a lot here in the Houston area. I’d like to see Abbott or his supporters address the issues in the ad itself rather than bringing up other issues. I realize that juries often award plaintiffs at the expense of corporations, but it does seem to me that Kirby was remiss in not doing a background check on the rapist; especially if he already had a record as a sexual criminal.
I was kind of up in the air about that as well, till I read the post above yours. The guy wasn’t even employed by Kirby. If you want to make a case for background checking on his employer (the Kirby distributor) I might be with you. But Kirby can’t be expected to run checks on people who aren’t even their employees, just because they sell Kirby-branded products. This was a cynical move on the part of the victim to find some deep-pockets to sue regardless of culpability of those pockets. Abbott was right on this, assuming the details in that post are legit.
The salesman did NOT work for Kirby, he worked and was hired by a local distributor.
The distributor was at fault for failing to do a background check.
This would be like someone trying to sue GM because a local dealer’s salesman raped them.
And in actuality, the couple lost upon further appeal in Federal court (on the same ground that Abbott mentioned), but the distributor settled out of court.
Born in Rhode Island, family moved to Texas when she was about 11.
I figured there was more to the story. This is what I meant when I said Abbott needs to address this. I hope they are working on a rebuttal now.
As they say, always follow the money.
How does that work? Kirby uses A “distributor” to hire salespeople? Yet this distributor is not part of Kirby?
If the vacuum cleaner itself is defective then Kirby is at fault. But if the distributor hires someone, he is responsible for that hire, not the company who makes the vacuum cleaner.
That is why the case was thrown out on appeal.
Follow the money on this case.
Kirby sells vacuum cleaners to distributors. Those distributors then hire salespeople to sell the vacs to customers.
I would expect in most cases that Kirby doesn’t even know who works for a particular distributor, who will often sell products from many manufacturers.
Manufacturer/distributor is an even looser relationship than franchisor/franchisee.
If you get raped at a grocery store, should you be allowed to sue Kellogg’s? How about Nabisco?
That’s what these people tried to do, basically.
Kirby certainly has a large number of people willing to spend time typing in their complaints.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/in_home/kirby.htm
IMO an ethical company would take steps to ensure its “independent distributors” don’t do stuff like this. If they don’t, it looks very much like they approve or at least don’t care.
Some unethical companies use people who are actually employees, but pretends they are subcontractors or independent distributors to avoid paying taxes, dodge complaints, etc. Have been peripherally involved in the past with companies that functioned this way, and they are essentially frauds in being. Have no personal experience as to whether this applies to Kirby.
I work for a distributor. We sell a variety of items which we sell to retail stores. If I hire an outside sales rep who goes on a crime spree, I would be responsible for hiring him, not the manufacturers of the products we sell.
Once we hired a guy who seemed to be a good employee, but when we did a background check on him, we found he'd been convicted of possessing child pornography. So, we had to make sure he was not involved with, say, deliveries to schools, or anything releated to children because we would have been liable if anything went amiss. We would have been liable, not the various manufacturers of the products.
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