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Judge rules Charter must pay $1.1 billion after murder of cable customer
Charter Communications must pay over $1.1 billion to the estate and family of an 83-year-old woman murdered in her home by a Spectrum cable technician, a Dallas County Court judge ruled yesterday.
A jury in the same court previously ordered Charter to pay $7 billion in punitive damages and $337.5 million in compensatory damages. Judge Juan Renteria lowered the award in a ruling issued yesterday.
The damages are split among the estate and four adult children of murder victim Betty Thomas. Renteria did not change the compensatory damages but lowered the punitive damages awarded to the family to $750 million. Pre-judgment interest on the damages pushes Charter's total liability to over $1.1 billion.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @03:52AM
I bet that didn't help lower the judgement.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:24AM (4 children)
Jurassic Vomit almost makes me want to register a username, and rock it until janrinoks bans it. But, you know, SN is no longer worth the effort. Boring stories, lame comments, psycho editors and admins. no reason to even try, anymore. Adeiu, mon SN!
(Score: 5, Funny) by janrinok on Wednesday September 21 2022, @07:47AM (3 children)
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @10:45AM (2 children)
Well, if it really is Ari. If any of them are really aristarchus. What if aristarchus just quit in February, and all this noise and bother is someone else? Wouldn't be the first time.
And, what? Again?
Site is still broken?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2022, @11:47AM
You've got it wrong. Ari is broken.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 21 2022, @02:42PM
Well, he is using one of Ari's email addresses to create his accounts. Now, how many people do you think have access to Ari's emails? Ah but you say, he is an AC!
Well, sort of. He has created and used 5 accounts this morning (Analtomography, Gromography, Manichee, AhuraMazda and Merdanlish), all from the same hash and all created with Ari's email addresses. And of the 4 comments he has made he has used his account names on 3 of them. All the comments were made from the same hash within a short timespan. Nobody else was using that hash, in fact nobody else has ever used that hash apart from the comments this morning.
The last 3 accounts this morning were all disabled before he could use them. Just another typical day in paradise......
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 21 2022, @02:27PM (6 children)
Don't courts put the value of a human life somewhere in the single digit millions usually?
Not Billions with a B.
A billion is enough money to make some meaningful changes in the world.
Not that I have a problem with making Charter pay that much. Especially with the forged arbitration thingy.
But corporations are people too!
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 21 2022, @03:52PM (2 children)
This isn't exactly a typical case. The real problem is, Charter's management knew, or should have known, that their employee was whacko. He exhibited traits and conduct for which almost any employer would have been alarmed. The most tolerant and liberal minded employers would have given the man a choice: take a job that doesn't involve interacting with customers, or termination. Less tolerant and liberal minded employers would have simply terminated him. When the corporation is backing and supporting strange, unexplainable crap like this boy was doing, the corporation becomes responsible.
We might argue the degree to which charter bears responsibility, but that degree really is pretty high in this case.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:54PM (1 child)
The real issue that is making the Billion Dollar punishment is the fact that they tried to cover it up, even going so far as to forge documents. They knew they did wrong. Then, they tried to get out of all of it, by forcing the family of the dead customer into arbitration via shady (possibly outright fraudulent) tactics. Charter needs to be kicked hard in the pocket book. They should not be allowed to treat their customers like that. Do I think that the family should get hundreds of millions of dollars, because mistakes were made? Not really. Do I object to the family receiving hundreds of millions of dollars? Not really. Especially when the company was trying to pull a fast one.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @06:52PM
I'd rather all the people responsible go to prison for what they did than them go free while the company is forced to pay a huge fine.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday September 21 2022, @04:28PM (2 children)
There is also an element of what I call "making the punishment hurt". Fining a giant corporation like Charter a million dollars will at most have them chalk it up to "cost of doing business as usual" and ignore it. When the fine is big enough to hurt, then you're more likely to see some action taken to change things.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday September 21 2022, @06:08PM
The cost of doing business as usual, huh? This clip on recalls [youtu.be] from Fight Club was probably the first time a lot of people understood how these things are calculated by at least some large corporations. And in the clip, they're describing a reasonably complex piece of machinery, not sending someone into customers' houses and then trying to paper over it. Seriously, attorneys pushing forged documents? Who's running these companies?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 21 2022, @08:45PM
I'm all for making the punishment hurt.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2022, @01:51AM
Does this mean Jim Carrey is going to make a sequel?