Jury Rules Against Charter – Forced to Pay BILLIONS!
(UnitedVoice.com) – The courts recently awarded the family of a murdered woman multi-million dollar damages from the employer of the man who killed her and has jailed the assailant for life. Now, they’re punishing the company where he worked again, this time for billions of dollars.
On December 9, 2019, Roy Holden Jr, a cable technician with Charter Communications, made a service call to Betty Thomas, an 83-year-old Irving, Texas, woman. The next day, he returned to her home in his work van wearing his company-issued overalls when he robbed and killed her. Police arrested the man a week later, and he admitted the murder at his 2021 trial, but Thomas’ family opened a lawsuit against Charter for negligence — even though its employee wasn’t on duty when he committed the crime.
Whoa! Jury hits Charter/Spectrum with $7 billion (yes you read that right) for gross negligence punishment phase in case that found Charter liable for 2019 robbery & murder of 83-year-old Betty Thomas by a company employee. Charter already hit with $375M in compensatory damages.
— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) July 26, 2022
A Dallas County jury decided Charter had been negligent in screening its employees, flagging warning signs, and controlling the off-duty use of corporate vehicles; Holden was able to use a company key card to access the van. On June 23, the jury reached a guilty verdict and awarded $357 million in compensatory damages. On Tuesday, they added $7 billion in punitive damages.
Charter pointed out Holden had no criminal record and passed a background check. A July 26 statement from the corporation said despite honoring the justice system and the jury’s service, “we strongly disagree with the verdict,” adding that they plan to appeal the decision.
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