Yesterday, this post about the fundamentally disgusting and disgraceful sexual abuse and humiliation of an 18 year old woman touched on the tangential issue of the reactionary “tort reform” provocateurs blaming the victim and her lawyers. The young woman, Louise Ogborn, sued the venerable institution of McDonalds, which Ted Frank of Overlawyered calls a “tertiary innocent victim.”
A jury returned a verdict against McDonalds in the total amount of $6.1 Million, including a $5 Million punitive damage award. As one of the Overlawyered sycophantic commenters notes, this is proof that jurors are ignorant unemployed or elderly people who feel good about themselves because they are “GIVING free money away.” (his caps, not mine).
While most of what appears at Overlawyered can be laughed at as being the rantings of a fringe element view of the evils of the civil law system, as expressed by people who enjoy a paycheck from such thoughtful groups as the American Enterprise Institute (What? You thought they weren’t paid for writing this drecht?), this time they’ve gone too far.
In their blind support of big business over all else, they have demeaned a young woman who was subjected to a strip search in the back room of a McDonalds restaurant, where she worked, by her manager. She was then subjected, still held in captivity in the back room, to a naked spanking and then forced to perform oral sex on the McDonalds manager’s fiance. She was forced to do jumping jacks, naked, to see if stolen items would fall out of her body. She cried and pleaded to be let out, but remained captive in that back room of McDonalds for hours.
McDonalds knew that there was someone, pretending to be a cop, targeting fast food restaurants for this specific purpose. McDonalds claims it sent out a mass email to its managers. The manager claims she never saw any such email. The manager said that the caller “knew the lingo” and was convincing that the manager had to follow his directions. The manager was the boss of this young woman. The manager held her in custody in the back room of McDonalds. The manager was the living, breathing representative of his “tertiary innocent victim,” McDonalds.
I can appreciate as well as the next guy that Overlawyered serves its big business masters by spinning any significant lawsuit into an unwarranted attack on corporate America. But this time it did so at the expense of a young woman who was subject to conduct that would make any human being wretch. This time the Overlawyered thinkers have gone so deep into the sewers that they have covered themselves in the detritus that cannot be washed away.
While Overlawyered never had much credibility with anyone who wasn’t already a card-holding member of the hallelujah chorus of corporate apologists, it now proves beyond any doubt that it will sacrifice any pretense at humanity to push its agenda of the victimization of corporate America, just because some evil, money-grubbing 18 year old had the audacity to expect that she would be able to go home from her job at McDonalds that day without having been kidnapped, strip-searched, sexually abused and humiliated at the hands of her employer.
This went way too far over the line. Overlawyered is a disgrace. And I sincerely hope that Ted Frank has no daughter who might someday be subjected to what happened to Louise Ogborn. If you have a moment, please let Ted Frank know how you feel about his attack on Louis Ogborn.
A jury returned a verdict against McDonalds in the total amount of $6.1 Million, including a $5 Million punitive damage award. As one of the Overlawyered sycophantic commenters notes, this is proof that jurors are ignorant unemployed or elderly people who feel good about themselves because they are “GIVING free money away.” (his caps, not mine).
While most of what appears at Overlawyered can be laughed at as being the rantings of a fringe element view of the evils of the civil law system, as expressed by people who enjoy a paycheck from such thoughtful groups as the American Enterprise Institute (What? You thought they weren’t paid for writing this drecht?), this time they’ve gone too far.
In their blind support of big business over all else, they have demeaned a young woman who was subjected to a strip search in the back room of a McDonalds restaurant, where she worked, by her manager. She was then subjected, still held in captivity in the back room, to a naked spanking and then forced to perform oral sex on the McDonalds manager’s fiance. She was forced to do jumping jacks, naked, to see if stolen items would fall out of her body. She cried and pleaded to be let out, but remained captive in that back room of McDonalds for hours.
McDonalds knew that there was someone, pretending to be a cop, targeting fast food restaurants for this specific purpose. McDonalds claims it sent out a mass email to its managers. The manager claims she never saw any such email. The manager said that the caller “knew the lingo” and was convincing that the manager had to follow his directions. The manager was the boss of this young woman. The manager held her in custody in the back room of McDonalds. The manager was the living, breathing representative of his “tertiary innocent victim,” McDonalds.
I can appreciate as well as the next guy that Overlawyered serves its big business masters by spinning any significant lawsuit into an unwarranted attack on corporate America. But this time it did so at the expense of a young woman who was subject to conduct that would make any human being wretch. This time the Overlawyered thinkers have gone so deep into the sewers that they have covered themselves in the detritus that cannot be washed away.
While Overlawyered never had much credibility with anyone who wasn’t already a card-holding member of the hallelujah chorus of corporate apologists, it now proves beyond any doubt that it will sacrifice any pretense at humanity to push its agenda of the victimization of corporate America, just because some evil, money-grubbing 18 year old had the audacity to expect that she would be able to go home from her job at McDonalds that day without having been kidnapped, strip-searched, sexually abused and humiliated at the hands of her employer.
This went way too far over the line. Overlawyered is a disgrace. And I sincerely hope that Ted Frank has no daughter who might someday be subjected to what happened to Louise Ogborn. If you have a moment, please let Ted Frank know how you feel about his attack on Louis Ogborn.
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Scott, I’m shocked that you think that it’s more important to punish innocent corporations than actual rapists. Why not sue the phone company, too?
Meanwhile, one guilty party–the manager who ordered the sexual humiliation of the girl–won $1.1 million from innocent McDonald’s shareholders, and another guilty party–the man who made the phone calls–got off scot-free because the witnesses discredited themselves in their greed to attack the innocent deep pocket. This is what I criticize, and this is what you ignore in your multiple attacks on me.
The victim has to pay the victimizer, and the perpetrator goes scot-free because of the actions of trial lawyers.
That you think that is justice shows how twisted your concept of the word is.
The record will reflect that I thought such lawsuits were an outrage long before I took a substantial paycut to work at AEI to promote the public good. It’s a sign of the weakness of your argument that you resort to ad hominem.
Yes Ted, I do resort to ad hominem this time. I am outraged by your attack on the victim for the audacity of seeking compensation for what was done to her. If this is a sign of the weakness of my argument, then I am powerless in the face of your great might.
As for who is the victim here, Louise Ogborn or McDonalds, my opinion is clear. Others can formulate their own opinion.
No one said Ogborn isn’t a victim of Nix, Summers, and allegedly Stewart. Donna Jean Summers won $1.1 million. Is she a victim for ordering Ogborn to strip and do jumping jacks? Is it justice that the most culpable party escaped scot-free because of Ogborn’s and Summers’s attorneys’ tactics? Why can’t you address the arguments that were actually made instead of attacking strawmen?
And now you have fallen into the strawman argument, Ted. While Summers and Nix are indeed culpable, that doesn’t miraculously excuse McDonalds. Deflecting attention by point elsewhere is a smoke screen. I haven’t argued for Summers’ award, yet you want to attribute that to me? Shame, Ted. Summers was convicted of unlawful imprisonment. No mention of that either, Ted. What gives?
As for the trial acquittal of the man who made the telephone call, you have attributed that to Ogborn’s and Summer’s attorneys tactics. No one else has done so, but perhaps you were on the jury and know something that the rest of the world does not?
So now your arguments are addressed. But you knew all this, and still persisted in promoting your beloved corporations as victims agenda. Happy?
October 8 Roundup
The DC Examiner quotes both Walter and me in their series on corruption in the trial bar. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: privacy laws interfere with college mental-health treatment, which of course…
Ted,
I’m not sure I understand your position (after reading you post and your comments here).
Are you saying that only the manager should not have received damages or that both the victim and the manager should not have received this award?
October 8 Roundup
The DC Examiner quotes both Walter and me in their series on corruption in the trial bar. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: privacy laws interfere with college mental-health treatment, which of course…
I’m one of Overlawyered’s “sycophants”, I suppose. I don’t receive a paycheck from anyone for what I write here (or there).
*I* certainly don’t “love” corporations at all, and I am still quite disturbed at how this case turned out.
This is not remotely “justice”.
And, if it makes you feel less dirty when you try to understand the logic, you can replace the awful, evil corporation with an individual (if McDonald’s were owned by a signl individual, for instance), and realize that the result would have been the same (the quest for deep pockets).
That is, the system is broken. I (and I’ve sen Ted do this as well) complain about the brokn-ness of the system whether the victim is a wealthy corporation or a dead-broke bum on the street.
Injustice is still injustice, no matter how much money the victim has. You would appear to define justice as a case where those with money are forced to give it those without.
I define justice as punishing the guilty and at least trying to make whole the victim. How much money either party has is not relevant.
If you are truly desirous of “justice”, then this decision should thrill you. After all, the members of a jury who heard all of the evidence decided that McDonalds was “guilty”. In fact, the jury found them so very “guilty” that they awarded punitive damages. You should be thrilled, since you have no love of corporations and want only the guilty to pay. And so all is right with the world. Unless, of course, one blindly assumes that any time a jury awards a judgment against a party that doesn’t seem obviously guilty under your personal analysis of right and wrong (without your having the benefit of facts or evidence, of course), then it must be injustice.
By the way, is there a reason that you’ve used a fictitous email address when commenting? Does your opinion embarrass you? It shouldn’t. You’re entitled to your opinion.
Gideon, I recognize that Scott doesn’t wish to address the arguments I actually made, but Volenti non fit injuria.
SHG