Appeals Court OKs $5M in Punitives for Victim of Phone Hoax Strip Search

ABA Journal News: “The state Court of Appeals upheld a $5 million award of punitive damages to the then 18-year-old worker who was targeted by the fake law enforcement officer on the phone.  The restaurant chain could have foreseen and prevented the incident by alerting and training employees, reports the Courier-Journal.  In its ruling Friday, the unanimous three-judge appellate panel noted that the hoax was one of some 30 incidents that had occurred at McDonald’s restaurants over a decade. Proper training of employees, the court said, likely would have prevented the young worker’s three-hour ordeal, in which she was also sexually abused.”

See the important comments made by Overlawyered about the alleged perpetrator of the hoax.

What the press coverage to date has not mentioned is that the person who almost certainly perpetrated the incident was acquitted after the Kentucky case fell apart because the criminal defense attorney was able to impeach the witnesses by noting their financial stakes in the civil litigation decided today. Thus, thanks to our civil litigation system’s quest for the deep pocket, the guilty party went free and a tertiary innocent victim got hit with damages. Which is precisely why it’s a misnomer when trial lawyers rename themselves associations for “justice.”