carbon dioxide Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 I always find judgements like this to be highly interesting "The 39-year-old Riverside woman, known in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, sued for damages against her stepfather, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and her mother, whom she said knew about the sexual abuse but did nothing to protect her, according to a news release by the law firm of Gary Dor****. The jury awarded the woman $836 million in damages and $1.44 billion in punitive damages. The church denied wrongdoing but settled its part of the lawsuit for $1 million in December, and the woman's mother settled for $200,000 in February, according to news reports. https://www.yahoo.com/news/jury-awards-riverside-woman-2-232010131.html Where do they come up with these numbers? Why not 840 or 830 million. I am sure this will get reduced substantially by appeal but 836 million. Since the church settled for 1 million, where is the rest of the money coming from? 2
JustAnAustralian Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) A jury can award what ever they like. It doesn't mean that's what the final award will be. They probably picked a dollar amount per year or count or something. Quote Since the church settled for 1 million, where is the rest of the money coming from? If it was settled, I don't think it would be coming from anywhere. Of course the original source is the AP, and they don't seem to like the church lately, so probably won't find out. Edited April 28, 2023 by JustAnAustralian 3
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 https://apnews.com/article/california-child-sexual-assault-lawsuit-settlement-b0b80f5f6cd3fdb3882f8ba4ed78bc29 If the Church and the mother settled and the stepfather didn’t bother showing up, would they have just admitted the daughter’s story and her evidence? Quote The stepfather failed to appear at trial on the first day of jury selection and withdrew his answer to the lawsuit rather than face a warrant for his arrest, and “accordingly, his attorney was not able to participate in the trial,” the law firm said in an email.
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) Nvm….only the one defendant… Edited April 28, 2023 by Calm
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) Quote A Riverside County jury has awarded $2.28 billion — perhaps the largest amount in a child sexual-assault case in U.S. history — to the stepdaughter of a one-time Lake Elsinore church elder who admitted in his criminal trial decades ago to committing lewd acts on a minor. Before the jury on Tuesday, April 25, ordered the man to pay $836 million in general damages and $1.44 billion in punitive damages, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled out of court for $1 million and the woman’s mother agreed to pay $200,000, according to the attorney for the woman, who is now 41. The stepfather did not show up to the civil trial, said the lawyer, Gary A. Dor****. The jury returned the verdict on the third day of deliberations. The Southern California News Group is not identifying the relatives to protect the victim. “Mrs. Doe wants everyone to know there is no shame in being a victim of abuse,” Dor**** said. The victim does not expect to receive much of the award, Dor**** said, with her stepfather in his 70s and working in a trophy shop. Only the stepfather was ordered to pay, not the Church. My guess is they were no longer even listed on the lawsuit as defendants. Can a lawyer or knowledgeable person confirm this, please? https://www.ocregister.com/2023/04/27/2-28-billion-award-in-lake-elsinore-child-sex-abuse-case-could-be-largest-ever/ Edited April 28, 2023 by Calm
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, JustAnAustralian said: A jury can award what ever they like. It doesn't mean that's what the final award will be. They probably picked a dollar amount per year or count or something. Quote Dor**** told jurors that if Fox Corp. agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle the defamation lawsuit that damaged the voting machine company’s reputation, then his client was entitled to at least $1.6 billion in combined damages for suffering physical abuse. The lawyer said he is not aware of a larger award in a similar case: “We think it’s the biggest. I’ve been doing this 36 years. It’s the largest sexual assault verdict in history.” His logic is, imo, ridiculous as there is nothing similar in the cases and ensuring a company is required to pay enough so it hurts them to prevent them continuing telling lies about another company is a very different situation than providing an adult child damages for something that twisted her entire life and probably requires her to work on healing for the rest of her life. To me, the comparison trivializes what she went through and is going through. Sounds like it was an emotional response from the jury, perhaps in anger the stepfather refused to even show up denying his stepdaughter a chance to confront him. Three days to determine how much she deserved from her dad. He had already admitted guilt, the mother and Church were no longer part of the equation….I got to wonder why it took so long. Edited April 28, 2023 by Calm 1
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) Deleted to respect the victim’s privacy. If she goes public, I will repost the info I found. Edited April 28, 2023 by Calm
Hamilton Porter Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 Quote According to the civil lawsuit, in 1994, when the girl was 13, she told a church bishop about her accusations and so he organized a meeting with her, him and the parents. “The bishop talked about forgiveness,” the lawsuit says. Geez. The silver lining is that this happened a long time ago. But We've seen an entire country (Ireland) lose their religiosity over sexual abuse. Of course, what happening in our church isn't at the same scale; it's mostly leaders not reporting stuff instead of actually committing the act. Still, we need to get a handle on this. There was this girl I spent a weekend with who said that when she told her bishop her husband, a relatively recent convert, was being abusive, he just brushed it off and said, "We're thinking of giving him a calling." 2
JustAnAustralian Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 6 hours ago, Calm said: Only the stepfather was ordered to pay, not the Church. My guess is they were no longer even listed on the lawsuit as defendants. Can a lawyer or knowledgeable person confirm this, please? https://www.ocregister.com/2023/04/27/2-28-billion-award-in-lake-elsinore-child-sex-abuse-case-could-be-largest-ever/ Thanks for the link.
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 1 hour ago, Hamilton Porter said: Still, we need to get a handle on this. As in stopping it or addressing the past mistakes?
Hamilton Porter Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 8 minutes ago, Calm said: As in stopping it or addressing the past mistakes? Stopping it.
Calm Posted April 28, 2023 Posted April 28, 2023 (edited) 41 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said: Stopping it. That was right before the hotline got established, so hopefully the Church has moved substantially down the road to stopping more cases like this or any other type of case of abuse. We are getting only one side of the story and little of that. It may be possible the bishop asked her if she wanted it reported and she said no, thinking as long as it was going to stop, she would prefer not to, perhaps to protect her mom and maybe she saw her stepfather as a father. Perhaps the parents agreed to certain protections (and then lied about followthrough as apparently happened in the Adams case). Of course when it didn’t stop, that wasn’t the scenario she had accepted (hypothetically). There should have been a safety procedure in place so she had a way out if he didn’t stop. Something besides finally appealing to someone outside the Church who was mandated (thank goodness) to report it. Whatever the reason, the bishop and others (if there was a valid reason not to report it) should have followed up to make sure abuse did not continue…on a day to day basis to begin with outside of the presence of mom and stepdad, maybe through a trusted female adult leader, if not the bishop himself. It is very disturbing as described. I think a lot of times forgiveness is pushed in the Church and elsewhere because well meaning people think it is possible to treat this type of offense like lesser offenses, where it may be emotionally healthier to accept it as your past, but not have it as part of one’s present. To move on, let it go, whatever cliche you want to use that stands for feeling an issue is resolved in one’s life and no longer going to pop up on one’s emotional to do list. Some people may think the same mechanism is at work with the ongoing pain of abuse as the one that deals with grudges and we all know grudges are better to resolve and not nurture. They may see forgiveness as necessary to forget an hurt and see it as best for the victim if they could actually forget what happened to them as much as possible. They may think healing means having the awareness of being abused removed from one’s thoughts, at least from day to day. They don’t realize that healing is actually being able to create a new normal that includes awareness of the abuse, but that one’s identity changes from victim to survivor or however someone who has gone though such would describe the process that has allowed them to no longer be retraumatized by the abuse and recalling it. So it may be sincere concern for the victim and not avoiding unpleasantness by hoping if the victim forgives, the difficulties all goes away somehow. I think part of the Church getting “a handle on this” is to stop presenting a simplified, idealized view of forgiveness (just give the pain over to Jesus and he will heal you) and to teach a more realistic process and how we can actually help (allowing victims to come to it when they are ready) as well as disconnecting and tossing the traditional “forget” attachment to forgiveness. Whatever the reason, I hope we hear less and less the stories of victims being pushed to interact with their predators to forgive them especially in ways where it more or less gets presented as it was the victim’s fault somehow. Edited April 28, 2023 by Calm 1
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