Another reason I hate most lawsuits and their lawyers

[Geronimo]

What got me upset was a perfectly typical lawer reaction to an individuals on the job criminal behavior. They are suing the criminals employer. The criminal in this case being a jackass who worked for Best Buys "Geek Squad" and apparently thought it would be cool to attempt to covertly video women in a customers home as they showered.

Obviously the women are justified in seeking justice and compensation but why oh why is it assumed that the employer somehow shares fault for this? What in the hell could they possibly have done differently apart from simply no longer offering the service to prevent this from occuring? Do people believe that there is some sort of magical screening process that employers can use to prevent any would be victimizer with no previous record criminals from getting hired into these positions?

Obviously they sue the employer because the employer can give them more money but what the hell do we as a society think allowing such lawsuits to proceed against employers is supposed to accomplish? Do we really want to have to pay extra as consumers for crap like psychological background checks that don't work (as evidenced by recent astronaut behavior)? The courts are supposably serving the public good. How does allowing such lawsuits further that aim? What exactly are we faulting the employers for?

What makes me most upset is of course that this sort of response to abhorent actions, to sue the employer or some other bystander totally not at fault, is not at all unusual. If it was an unusual response I might just write it off but being as it's so typical it has a pathological effect on entire honest industries. Adding lawsuit insurance expenses to a huge variety of enterprises that contributes nothing to productivity or accountability but only serves to line the pockets of lawyers, insurers and finally the victims who in turn are merely victimizing other innocents to get their pound of flesh.



Bah. I feel a little better now thank you.

[Wezil]

We need more facts to understand the legal issue.

for example, What sort of due diligence does BB use when hiring? Did this employee have any previous 'incidents'? etc...

I notice that Gloria Allred is the paintiffs attorney so you may well be right in this case Geronimo.

[Wycoff]

Respondeat superior makes sense in some contexts, but not in this one. I doubt that this case goes anywhere, as I'm sure that "filming women while they shower" does not fall within the scope of the Geek Squad guy's employment.

Cases like this give attorneys their bad reputation. It's a naked cash grab (pardon the pun)

[Cort Haus]

I agree, Geronimo. If the US doesn't sort this problem out, people are eventually just not going to want to do business there, and will prefer to invest in less litigious countries.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It depends, though... Wezil has a point that if this guy had strikes against him and Best Buy ignored it, or didn't even do the effort to see it, that definately can be on their head.

[Arrian]

The devil's in the details.

-Arrian

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Wycoff
Respondeat superior makes sense in some contexts, but not in this one. I doubt that this case goes anywhere, as I'm sure that "filming women while they shower" does not fall within the scope of the Geek Squad guy's employment.

Cases like this give attorneys their bad reputation. It's a naked cash grab (pardon the pun)

This comes down to the question of the standard in screening employees that go into people's homes. I would argue that there is a duty on an employer to do some basic checks. For example, I would see them as being liable if a business sends a guy with 20 housebreaking convictions out into people's homes.

If the employer does have some sort of reasonable screening process, I would think their duty is discharged and the employer escapes liability. If they don't screen at all, its not a great leap to impose a duty on an employer and to see how damage might be forseeable from the failure to properly carry out this duty.

I have seen worse lawsuits .


I think that one of the major reasons the US sees more frivlous lawsuits than Canada is the typical rules around court costs. IN Canada if you sue someone and lose, you typically pay their "court costs" which is a legislated amount based on the length and complexity of the matter. It is rarely enough to keep the defendent whole but it is usually significant. So the total crap lawsuits are more often avoided ( My understanding is that only a few US states have this)

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui It depends, though... Wezil has a point that if this guy had strikes against him and Best Buy ignored it, or didn't even do the effort to see it, that definately can be on their head.

Look at what they're alleging: fraud, negligent misrepresentation and hiring, invasion of privacy, and IIED. They want both compensatory and punitive damages for all of them.

The only reasonable claim against Best Buy that I see is negligent hiring. That's the only claim that has anything to do with the actions of the employer, and it would turn on the factors that you, Weezil, and Flubber mention.

Everything else seems pure respondeat superior, and I just don't see how the guy's actions fit within the scope of his employment any more than if he would have bludgeoned the girl with a baseball bat. It's a weak case, IMO. It is CA, though. Maybe they have an extremely expansive definition of "within the scope of employment."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well the only reason he was there was because of his job. If his history was rotten, I can see Best Buy being liable because that was the guy they sent.

Realistically, negligent hiring would probably just be a slap on the wrist. Respondeat superior allows an incentive for companies to be careful on who they hire.

[Geronimo]

I'm surprised and greatly relieved to see nobody really leaping to defend the merits of this lawsuit.

I actually don't have any problem with allowing far more limited liability relating to possible negligent hiring in a case like this assuming that best buy did not even do a basic background check. much of my anger stemmed from my understanding that best buy does in fact require such a background check for all of it's employees that would enter a customers home.

Question:

Supposing Best Buy had a policy requiring such background checks when hiring these employees could it still be held liable if a local manager or local hiring authority ignored such policies and made an individual decision to hire without the requisite background checks?

[Arrian]

I'd imagine so, yes.

To go with something I'm more familiar with, if an insurance company has guidelines for claims handling, but in a particular claim totally ignores them and acts in bad faith, the company is liable for said bad faith.

-Arrian

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'd imagine so, yes.

To go with something I'm more familiar with, if an insurance company has guidelines for claims handling, but in a particular claim totally ignores them and acts in bad faith, the company is liable for said bad faith.

-Arrian

What if the company didn't ignore them but rather a small number of employees involved ignored company direction?

[DinoDoc]

Pff. I like this better.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Pff. I like this better.

Just think, now the lawyer can force the post office to re-hire the postal worker and then when the postal worker shoots the car of the guy who parked too close to him on his coffee break the victim can have the same lawyer sue the post office for millions of dollars in punitives and compensation for various kinds of trauma due to their negligent hiring.

[chequita guevara]

If they don't sue Best Buy, then they can't do discovery to find out what sort of precautions BB had in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

It's very foolish to make any sort of judgments based on opening salvos. Ultimately, this will be settled out of court.