Posted on 05/24/2018 11:27:09 AM PDT by simpson96
ATLANTA -- A Georgia jury has awarded an eye-popping $1 billion verdict against a security company after an apartment complex guard was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.
Hope Cheston was outside by some picnic tables with her boyfriend during a party in October 2012 when an armed security guard approached, attorney L. Chris Stewart told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The guard told the boyfriend not to move and raped Cheston, Stewart said.
The guard, identified in the lawsuit as Brandon Lamar Zachary, was convicted of statutory rape and is serving a 20-year prison sentence, according to online prison records.
Renatta Cheston-Thornton filed a lawsuit in March 2015 on behalf of her daughter, who was still a minor at the time. The jury on Tuesday handed down the verdict against Crime Prevention Agency, the security company that employed Zachary.
Zachary, who was 22 at the time of the rape, should never have been hired because he wasn't licensed to be an armed guard, Stewart said.
The judge had already determined the security company was liable, so the jury was only determining damages, Stewart said. After reading the verdict, Stewart said, jurors immediately left the jury box - without waiting for the judge's permission - to hug Cheston and her mother.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc7chicago.com ...
Picture of “Guard” here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6366378/rape-victim-hope-cheston-georgia-1-billion-damages-verdict-security-guard-attack/
IF you hire someone who struts around in your uniform while being paid by you , *YOU*, personally, are responsible; screw any B.S such as hiding behind a corporate veil or declaring bankruptcy- anyone involved in this goon’s hiring should be behind bars, getting pounded, until they make good all damages to the satisfaction of the victim.
But people should not get out of jail until they’ve paid them, preferably at .02 an hour.
Not when they commit a criminal act for which you had no prior knowledge.
An employer is responsible for an employee in the normal performance of his duties. Raping people is not a "duty" of an employee, and unless the employer had knowledge that the guy had a propensity to do something like this, they cannot reasonably be held responsible for his conduct.
Suppose a "guard" robs a bank and kills someone. Does this make the security company he works for responsible for that person's death? Did they induce him somehow to do it?
Ok, well let’s abolish corporations then, since their primary purpose is to shield individuals from liability. As far as locking up people up in a federal prison until they pay the damages in a state court civil case.... well ok. I know Georgia was essentially founded as an open air debtors prison, but I don’t think they still have debtors prison there. Everyone should just calm down: it’s terrible what happened but this verdict is an outrage. Once the appeals are concluded, the defunct company’s insurance company will promptly cut the check. Probably settle before then for policy limits.
"A billion is the new million"
I'm sure there is a Million-Man-March math textbook in the nearest high school library...
The company will go bankrupt and they will get whatever assets it has.
“The people of Georgia did not rape that teen. One guy did that. The people of Georgia should not have to be held accountable for such gross malfeasance on the part of some bastard their representatives hired. “
Are you really that retarded to think this was a verdict against the State and not a private company??
“. The company he worked for should only be held accountable to a lesser degree than the criminal himself, and then only if it can be proven that they used gross negligence in hiring him. “
Their gross negligence was proven: The guard wasn’t licensed to be a guard. THAT is gross negligence.
after a couple of appeals, the “award” will be reduced to a couple million ...
“Wow.... I’d have let him rape me for $500,000,000. I guess I am a whore.”
well, at least no one can call you a cheap whore ...
Not having a license does not imply that someone will commit a rape. That is a ridiculous standard to claim negligence.
Lol! Well, they can still call me that, but it wouldn’t be true.
A billion dollars doesn’t bring back your innocence. But it sure helps you find ways to forget it.
I feel towards corporations exactly the way I do towards government and unions: any entity that gets too damn big is something to be feared and whacked back.
“A billion dollars doesn’t bring back your innocence. But it sure helps you find ways to forget it.”
and besides, you indicated it would only be for that one time ... :):):)
That's what you get when you select jurors from welfare rolls and in some places even take those with criminal records.
Whatever the limits are on the liability insurance policy that the company was required to have in force when the incident occurred. (I doubt Georgia requires $1 billion business liability insurance. But $1-5 million could be. This isn't the first security guard who did something wrong. It's probably fairly common that security companies get sued.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.