McDonald's employee wins strip search lawsuit

Great Debates
21

I have read about this case, and I can’t believe some people try to blame the victim here.

You have a small teenage girl being totally dominated by a large man who physically restrains and assaults her, and threatens worse if she resists.

The fact that the call was a hoax does not change the situation from the girl’s point of view. Being attacked on false pretenses is still being attacked. She was still confronted with a physically overwhelming and terrifying assailant. Her fear was entirely justified.

If I make a “hoax call” to an assassin to have you killed, would you be an “idiot” for not protesting to the bullet as it enters your skull?

22

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]
I have read about this case, and I can’t believe some people try to blame the victim here.

You have a small teenage girl being totally dominated by a large man who physically restrains and assaults her, and threatens worse if she resists.
[/quote]

That’s not what happened.

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]

The fact that the call was a hoax does not change the situation from the girl’s point of view. Being attacked on false pretenses is still being attacked. She was still confronted with a physically overwhelming and terrifying assailant. Her fear was entirely justified.
[/quote]

She shouldn’t have consented to the strip search or sex act. She wasn’t under physical threat, nor was she even restrained. The bottom line is that due to her unbelievable stupidity she was tricked into doing things she didn’t want to do.

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]

If I make a “hoax call” to an assassin to have you killed, would you be an “idiot” for not protesting to the bullet as it enters your skull?
[/QUOTE]

This is a stunningly stupid analogy.

23

[QUOTE=treis]

She shouldn’t have consented to the strip search or sex act. She wasn’t under physical threat, nor was she even restrained. The bottom line is that due to her unbelievable stupidity she was tricked into doing things she didn’t want to do.

[/QUOTE]

She did not consent any more than a rape victim consents.

She was under physical threat, and in fact she was physically assaulted.

The supervisor who assaulted her was stupid or evil, I’ll grant. But the girl was confronted with a very stupid yet physically overwhelming assailant. The fact of the hoax and the stupidity of the supervisor do not change the situation from her point of view.

24

Thought I’d better comment on this before this thread gots too far along:

[Quote=Wee Bairn]
IMO, if the supervisor had done the strip search and nothing more, then maybe thegirl should not have won the suit, as a strip search may have seemed like a reasonable request from a cop.
[/Quote]

Nope. Where on earth would any thinking person get the notion that police routinely call up total strangers, who are not themselves law enforcement officers, and order them to strip-search another person over the phone? The request was not reasonable under any circumstances.

Perhaps the young woman was indeed an ‘idiot’, as some have put it, for not refusing to go along with this, but that says nothing whatever about the acceptability of the abuse to which she was subjected. She was 18 at the time, apparently. Would a jury award have been more acceptable if she were 15? 10?

Or, what Ermes Marama said.

Now, is McDonald’s the corporation in any way responsible for what happened? Well, I’d have to say yes, based on (AFAIK) a large body of precedent that establishes corporate liability for actions carried out by employees who are, or believe they are, carrying out their jobs. From what I’ve read of the case, the corporation in some way had information that could have helped prevent the assistant manager from blindly following the caller’s orders, which, it seems she believed it was her job to do.

As for the amount of the award: apparently the jury had discretion to award punitive damages in whatever amount they felt was justified by the facts of the case. If one is angry about the size of the award, I’ll be happy to hear arguments for or against placing liability limits on cases of this nature, but I don’t really think anyone who did not hear the full arguments on both sides can accurately judge whether the award was correct or not, unless perhaps one feels that no such award is ever justified.

25

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]
She did not consent any more than a rape victim consents.

She was under physical threat, and in fact she was physically assaulted.
[/quote]

There is no evidence that she was ever physically forced to do anything. In fact, the caller on the phone said that she could be searched there or taken down to the police station to be searched. The only thing keeping in her in that office was her breathtaking stupidity.

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]

The supervisor who assaulted her was stupid or evil, I’ll grant. But the girl was confronted with a very stupid yet physically overwhelming assailant. The fact of the hoax and the stupidity of the supervisor do not change the situation from her point of view.
[/QUOTE]

The supervisor in question was an overweight middle aged women, and there was an assistant manager present. It is true that the manager’s husband was much larger than her, but he didn’t show up until hours after the incident started. However, she was held in a crowded McDonald’s with help no more than a scream away. I’m not abdicating any of the other morons in this incident from their responsibility, nor am I saying that she deserved what happened to her. I’m saying that she was a consenting, albeit unwilling, party to most of this incident. Anyone with an ounce of sense in them would have refused to strip for the manager.

26

[QUOTE=sqweels]
She got paid $6.1 million for sitting there. Doesn’t sound stupid to me.

But what I want to know is, what sex act was she made to perform?
[/QUOTE]

That sounds pretty cold, dude, are you after truth or being clever, or trying to make this tolerable? I think compassion rules.

Linnea

27

[QUOTE=sqweels]
She got paid $6.1 million for sitting there. Doesn’t sound stupid to me.

But what I want to know is, what sex act was she made to perform?
[/QUOTE]

Are you being flippant or dealing with her reality, dude? Are you after cleverness or truth? Compassion rules!

Linnea

28

[QUOTE=treis]
I’m not abdicating any of the other morons in this incident from their responsibility, nor am I saying that she deserved what happened to her. I’m saying that she was a consenting, albeit unwilling, party to most of this incident. Anyone with an ounce of sense in them would have refused to strip for the manager.
[/QUOTE]

I can sort of see what you are saying here. Before the boyfriend arrived, she was not physically dominated into doing anything. I think she was bewildered by the insanity of the situation rather than stupid. It still does not justify what was done, however.

And once the boyfriend arrived, you are way off.

In her own words:

“I was scared, and I was petrified,” Ogborn said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if this was my last day on Earth.”

The guy towered over her, hit her, sexually abused her, and seemed willing to do anything. I’m still not sure how far he would have gone, and I don’t believe you are either. She certainly had no reason to believe he had a line he wouldn’t cross. Her terror was justified.

I’m just glad you weren’t on the jury that convicted the guy.

29

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]
I can sort of see what you are saying here. Before the boyfriend arrived, she was not physically dominated into doing anything. I think she was bewildered by the insanity of the situation rather than stupid. It still does not justify what was done, however.

And once the boyfriend arrived, you are way off.

In her own words:

“I was scared, and I was petrified,” Ogborn said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if this was my last day on Earth.”

The guy towered over her, hit her, sexually abused her, and seemed willing to do anything. I’m still not sure how far he would have gone, and I don’t believe you are either. She certainly had no reason to believe he had a line he wouldn’t cross. Her terror was justified.

I’m just glad you weren’t on the jury that convicted the guy.
[/QUOTE]

I am so glad to feel heard! (and sorry that I am navigating poorly here). I have been where she was.

Linnea

30

Folks, the simple fact of tort law is that, just because someone else may also be at fault for the damages that occur in a case doesn’t mean you aren’t at fault. That was true in the coffee case (which, by the way, was not about how hot the coffee was, but about the failure of McDonald’s to adequately warn about the hot coffee, or otherwise mitigate the possibility of spilled hot coffee in a driver’s lap, which possibility they were aware of and which they chose not to do anything about, until after the lawsuit). It is true, here, too.

For those of you who say that the victim was stupid, yes, well, so what? There are a large number of “stupid” people in the world; by definition, half of all people are of less than average intelligence. Maybe someone with more moxy, or more intelligence, never would have let the whole thing get that far. So what? We don’t condition tort recovery on the basis of whether or not you were “smarter than the average bear.” Such a theory of liability would be rather silly in its own right. One can simply turn the situation around: had McDonald’s done what it should have, the whole thing never would have happened in the first place. If the assistant manager hadn’t been so stupid, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. Which, then, is the “cause” of the incident.

Tort theory is quite complex in such cases. I’d imagine that the case, if it ends up being appealed and results in an official reported decision will be studied with regard to proximate cause. To dismiss the whole thing on the basis that “the employee was stupid” is to show a stunning lack of comprehension of how tort law works in this country.

Which is not to say it was a slam dunk case. But keep in mind, the jury heard the evidence, got instructed on the law, and returned the verdict, so it’s pretty clear that it can’t be too unreasonable a result.

31

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]
I can sort of see what you are saying here. Before the boyfriend arrived, she was not physically dominated into doing anything. I think she was bewildered by the insanity of the situation rather than stupid. It still does not justify what was done, however.

And once the boyfriend arrived, you are way off.

In her own words:

“I was scared, and I was petrified,” Ogborn said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if this was my last day on Earth.”

The guy towered over her, hit her, sexually abused her, and seemed willing to do anything. I’m still not sure how far he would have gone, and I don’t believe you are either. She certainly had no reason to believe he had a line he wouldn’t cross. Her terror was justified.

I’m just glad you weren’t on the jury that convicted the guy.
[/QUOTE]

Frankly I’m not seeing why this man is more responsible than the girl. Yes, he should have rubbed two brain cells together and figured out that the cop was a hoax. However, I don’t see why him doing things he obviously shouldn’t have is any different than this girl doing things she obviously shouldn’t have. He was tricked, the girl was tricked, and the manager was tricked. I guess if I were on his jury I would let him go if I were convinced that he were tricked into participating. Fortunately for these three breathtaking stupidity isn’t illegal.

32

[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
One can simply turn the situation around: had McDonald’s done what it should have, the whole thing never would have happened in the first place. If the assistant manager hadn’t been so stupid, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened.
[/QUOTE]

Do you think that McDonald’s has a responsibility to include the following question on their manager’s application:

“Imagine that you received a phone call from someone claiming to be a cop. If that caller asked you to strip search an employee, have her do naked jumping jacks, and then have her perform a sex act on your boyfriend, would you comply? Y/N”

I mean that’s the crux of the issue here if you ask me. It’s not reasonable to expect McDonald’s to specifically train their managers not to strip search employees. If this lawsuit is the new norm every company would need to send their managers to a year long course entitled “How to have an IQ above 40” in order to avoid liability. It’s completely asinine.

33

[QUOTE=treis]
Frankly I’m not seeing why this man is more responsible than the girl. Yes, he should have rubbed two brain cells together and figured out that the cop was a hoax. However, I don’t see why him doing things he obviously shouldn’t have is any different than this girl doing things she obviously shouldn’t have. He was tricked, the girl was tricked, and the manager was tricked. I guess if I were on his jury I would let him go if I were convinced that he were tricked into participating. Fortunately for these three breathtaking stupidity isn’t illegal.
[/QUOTE]
I’m having difficulty understanding how I could be “tricked” into believing that a non-present law enforcement official is actually ordering a women to perform sex acts on/with me. That just doesn’t jive with my version of reality. To equate the man’s situation with the girl’s just doesn’t make any sense at all.

34

[QUOTE=Asimovian]
I’m having difficulty understanding how I could be “tricked” into believing that a non-present law enforcement official is actually ordering a women to perform sex acts on/with me. That just doesn’t jive with my version of reality. To equate the man’s situation with the girl’s just doesn’t make any sense at all.
[/QUOTE]

Can’t say I understand it either. Nor can I say that I understand how the manager or the girl were tricked into complying. Nevertheless that appears to be what happened.

35

[QUOTE=treis]
Can’t say I understand it either. Nor can I say that I understand how the manager or the girl were tricked into complying. Nevertheless that appears to be what happened.
[/QUOTE]

The girl wasn’t tricked into complying. She was terrified of a man who physically dominated her, hit her, and sexually abused her. She was terrified that this could be her last day on earth.

Your argument rests on your assertion that the boyfriend wouldn’t have actually done her any harm, thus she had no real reason to be terrified. But this is demonstrably false, because he did her harm and gave no indication that there were any limits on the harm he would do.

36

[QUOTE=Ermes Marana]
The girl wasn’t tricked into complying. She was terrified of a man who physically dominated her, hit her, and sexually abused her. She was terrified that this could be her last day on earth.

Your argument rests on your assertion that the boyfriend wouldn’t have actually done her any harm, thus she had no real reason to be terrified. But this is demonstrably false, because he did her harm and gave no indication that there were
any limits on the harm he would do.
[/QUOTE]

Ok, how many times are we going to have to go over this? The man didn’t show up until hours into the incident. The girl had ample time to leave before he arrived. She didn’t because she was tricked into staying. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that she was physically restrained by the man either. It seems that it was all psychological coercion.

37

At this point your opinion makes so little sense that I can’t meaningfully address it.

I can only repeat how fortuitous it is that you were not on the jury, and hope that you are never on the jury in any case remotely similar to this one.

38

OK, I will add that there is a difference between the authority figures and the girl.

The authority figures did terrible things that they knew were illegal because a voice on a phone told them to. They are responsible for these actions, and were rightfully convicted.

The girl was faced with real life people, including authority figures for her, telling her what to do, hitting her, sexually abusing her, and terrifying her.

She didn’t do anything because the voice on a phone told her to. It was the real life people who she was responding to. Big difference.
Let’s say the guy realized it was a hoax. That wouldn’t have changed the fact that he had imprisoned, hit, and sexually abused a terrified teenage girl a fraction of his size.

It wouldn’t have changed the fact he was facing jail time for his crimes.

Under those circumstances, she could rightfully fear violence to shut her up, or threats if she talked.
I can’t understand how people can call it “being tricked”, when she was legitimately terrified, physically dominated, and had in fact been hit and sexually abused. It makes no sense.

39

[QUOTE=treis]
Do you think that McDonald’s has a responsibility to include the following question on their manager’s application:

“Imagine that you received a phone call from someone claiming to be a cop. If that caller asked you to strip search an employee, have her do naked jumping jacks, and then have her perform a sex act on your boyfriend, would you comply? Y/N”

I mean that’s the crux of the issue here if you ask me. It’s not reasonable to expect McDonald’s to specifically train their managers not to strip search employees. If this lawsuit is the new norm every company would need to send their managers to a year long course entitled “How to have an IQ above 40” in order to avoid liability. It’s completely asinine.
[/QUOTE]

And that’s the thing. It’s somewhat unreasonable to assume that McDonald’s has a responsibility to warn all of its 800,000 some employees of all possible hoaxes, no matter how improbable or stupid, as soon as it knows about them. And I think it’s safe to say that someone falling for this scam (meaning, the manager) is so breathtakingly stupid they probably don’t deserve to be employed in any industry where they could directly or indirectly impact the health of the public, such as, being a restaurant manager. Does McDonald’s now need to hold multi-hour team meetings every day to tell its employees such pearls of wisdom as “If someone calls you up and tells you to bob for French fries, don’t do it”, and “never pet a burning dog?*” Even if they did, they’d still almost certainly be sued when someone tried it, and they still almost certainly would be forced to pay, since after all, as the past has shown the public has little responsibility to know that some things are, well, hot.

Good God, at some point individual people have to be held responsible for their own actions and stupidity. Let’s be clear, here - I don’t blame the girl who was terrorized into complying, I can understand how she was manipulated and abused by these criminals. I blame the manager and her boyfriend. They are the responsible parties, and they are the only ones, aside from the unknown person on the phone, who should have to pay. I’m sorry if they don’t have the deep pockets of McDonald’s, so suing them is un-lucrative, but life sucks.

And let’s never forget - the criminal fucking manager is suing as well.

  • Five points to whoever gets that reference without Google.
40

[QUOTE=treis]

I mean that’s the crux of the issue here if you ask me. It’s not reasonable to expect McDonald’s to specifically train their managers not to strip search employees. If this lawsuit is the new norm every company would need to send their managers to a year long course entitled “How to have an IQ above 40” in order to avoid liability. It’s completely asinine.
[/QUOTE]

It *is *reasonable, however, for McDonald’s to warn their employees that this very thing has happened at other stores. It is *also *reasonable that the girl not be subjected to this by her superior.