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KDND: WON'T BE PROSECUTED

Very interesting

1. It was a stupid stunt but if nothing had happened 50 other radio stations would have followed suit.

2. I wonder if this will impact the civil suit?

3. It is very unfortunate that a person died but as the DA said she had AMPLE opportunity to quit and didn't, it seems to me she bares a great deal of fault.
 
I think the civil payout will be huge.

The D.A. saw this for the horrible tragic accident that it is.

The system works.
 
2. I wonder if this will impact the civil suit?

3. It is very unfortunate that a person died but as the DA said she had AMPLE opportunity to quit and didn't, it seems to me she bares a great deal of fault.
Click to expand...

These two items go together.

The decision to charge or not to charge normally doesn't impact a civil suit, since the burdens of proof are so different, with a civil claim needing only a preponderance of the evidence (that is, more likely than not that someone is liable for an injury). While a successful prosecution and conviction could be used to establish evidentiary support in the civil suit, the LACK of such is not exculpatory at all.

The contestant's own fault in the civil suit will be an issue, but it is NOT a bar to suit. The jury will have to decide (if it gets that far) how much the station, management, air staff, and the contestant herself were each at fault. I don't find that she is "a great deal [at] fault"--and certainly not more than the station staff. She could have quit and still suffered injury from the contest operators NOT warning her of the risk of harm.

And Paul is right--the system does work. It was never certain that there was enough proof here to charge anyone criminally. Murder was never an option, so you'd have been looking at reckless homicide or manslaughter or negligent homicide. And then there's the issue of proof.

On top of it all: prosecutorial discretion.

The system does work.
 
I agree. I think Entercomm will lose a civl suit but I think that the comments of the DA could be used to put some blame on the contestant thus reducing the payout.
And yes the system works
 
There will be a civil suit or at least some kind of settlement. The only question remaining is, how much will it be?
 
Guilt and Innocence

The decision to forego prosecution of KDND staffers means that the DA determined that it would require more time and resources to sort out individual responsibility in a tangled situation than the possible charges would merit.

It does not mean that the staffers were "not guilty", let alone "innocent". It does mean that a civil court, which does not require the same standards of proof of individual actions, will determine whether or not damages should be awarded to the Strange family.

I don't believe that it will ever get that far. Entercom will settle out of court for an amount that will not be disclosed in public. I believe that it will be well into 7 figures.

The fired KDND staffers still have their own consciences to contend with, and are not likely to work in industry again.
 
Re: Guilt and Innocence

SirRoxalot said:
The decision to forego prosecution of KDND staffers means that the DA determined that it would require more time and resources to sort out individual responsibility in a tangled situation than the possible charges would merit.
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No...I know this refutes your past agenda...but what it really means is that the D.A. determined:

"Any reasonable person wouldn't have concluded that she was seriously ill or in danger of dying."

and,

"There were no red flags."

Let's not leave out:

"There were no observable indications or symptoms that Jennifer Strange was experiencing a serious medical emergency which would have required station employees to seek or administer medical aid to her."

Prosecutors also noted that Strange participated willingly and could have left at any time.

Which means they did sort out individual responsibility and placed it where it belongs. Upon the individual.

Your attempt to redefine what today's decision signifies is purely your opinion, and it contradicts the fact that this was a horrible, unfortunate accident. Proven after months of intensive investigation.

Now, the time-tested exercise in American legal crap known as "the civil suit" will begin. Where a price is negotiated as to how much a human life is worth. In my opinion, this is a sickening facet of the American legal system. Even though the D.A. has ruled that there are no legal grounds to assign criminal responsibility, somehow we still have this inherent need to balance the scales of justice through financial means. I think that once a D.A., or a court decides a case has no reason to be tried, that the civil process circumvents the law. How can you assign fault in a case where the law has said there's no fault? And actually goes on record as assigning responsibility to the victim? I can't quite comprehend that.

Whatever. I digress. We all know the insurance co. will write a huge check before this goes to trial in the interest of sparing the family any more undue stress.
 
How can you assign fault in a case where the law has said there's no fault?
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Because the criminal law is not the civil law and vice versa.

The criminal law punishes those acts which are crimes against society.

The civil law (in this case, of torts) provides a remedy at law for those persons injured by the negligence of another.

"The law" has decided nothing. A prosecutor decided that there was insufficient probable cause to charge a crime as defined by the California legislature.

That decision does not impact or affect in anyway a civil lawsuit. In fact, the statements of the District Attorney mean nothing in the civil suit. The "record" you speak of is in the media, no other. Certainly, no court.

Paul, I understand that you find this whole incident to be an accident. But I think you are letting that determination cloud your entire understanding of what the civil justice system does. Even accidents have some cause and fault. Sometimes they are the fault of the injured person. Often, they are the fault of someone else. Sometimes they are the fault of both parties, in unequal proportions.

The Strange family has lost a mother, wife, sister, daughter, etc. Ms. Strange, herself, was injured for a period before she died. The only remedy we provide at law for an injury is money damages because the law has no other way to provide a remedy. We cannot bring Ms. strange back from the dead. We cannot eject the water from her body, even pre-mortum, and fix the damage to her bodily functions caused by that.

Are you saying that because the station, its management, the on-air staff, promotions staff, etc. were negligent in conducting this contest by not researching it, not giving warnings, not consulting medical experts, etc. BEFORE contestants took part, they are immune from civil liability? That because Ms. Strange took part voluntarily that the station, et al. is immune from any liability for their own negligent acts?

That's not the law in California. If you have a serious problem with it, talk to your state legislator and have them change it (back).

I would also caution you to keep your words in mind should you ever be involved in a motor accident, injured by a defective product, etc. and want to receive damages for your injury because of the other driver/manufacturer's negligence.

The system works by providing criminal actions by the people as a whole, and civil actions by those who are individually impacted. A lack of harm to the state (and society) does not mean there was no actionable harm to the family and the injured.
 
I understand that you find this whole incident to be an accident. But I think you are letting that determination cloud your entire understanding of what the civil justice system does. Even accidents have some cause and fault. Sometimes they are the fault of the injured person. Often, they are the fault of someone else. Sometimes they are the fault of both parties, in unequal proportions.

Now the question is who is at fault the most. the contestant or the station.
 
Now the question is who is at fault the most. the contestant or the station.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I don't have all the facts and evidence in front of me, and neither does anyone else here.

That will be up to the jury to decide, should it get that far.

But the rule (in California and most other jurisdictions) is no longer that any fault on the part of the injured precludes any recovery from a tortfeasor.
 
I'm not saying there isn't a degree of responsibility on the part of the station.

I just don't get the civil system. I know it's often times difficult to guage tone of voice in typeset. I'm not angry about it. I just think that assigning a price to life is sickening. And I never understood the civil system at all.

I guess if you mess up, a certain degree of financial compensation exonerates you. Strange concept. But, it's the one we have.

Either way. I still doubt this ever sees the inside of a courtroom.
 
Paul, I agree that sometimes typed words convey a tone that wasn't necessarily intended. I took some of that as anger, and I see that I shouldn't have. My apologies.

But I'm hoping that I can help with an explanation of the civil system (particularly tort law, which is what we're dealing with here).

There isn't a "price to life" assigned in most cases. What is recompensed in most cases is:

(a) economic damages (medical bills, loss of pay, repoars/replacements, etc.) based on the injury--if you're in a car accident and are injured, a tort suit would be able to recover your medical bills, loss of wages from time off work from the accident and the medical care, and repairs to your car [if this is covered by insurance, your insurance company may ask you to file suit to recover these damages, and then the insurance company would be recompensated for what they already paid out to you]. I'm sure no one has a problem with these damages being recovered.

(b) pain & suffering. This might be what you are thinking of as putting a "price to life". (Though there is one more price I'll get to in section (c)). Pain and suffering is a way the law quantifies in a monetary amount those types of things that are inherently qualitative and emotional--pain and suffering by the injured person (shoulder pain, neck pain, abdominal pain, etc.), loss of consortium by the spouse (that is, loss of the full benefits of companionship, emotional relations, unhappiness in the spouse caused by discomforting pain, or effects of medication, loss of sexual relations, etc. for the time that the injury affects the injured person), emotional harm from the injury, loss of quality of life (for example, if you liked to play hockey but can't after your injury). These things don't have a "monetary" component--there is no bill for your pleasure from playing hockey, or a set amount for sexual relations with your spouse. The law does its best to assign a value--mostly open to the jury--to these unquantifiable items.

(c) life expectancy. Probably what most people think of as "price to life". This comes into play in a wrongful death suit, and is a complicated, expert economic analysis of a deceased person's life expectancy (from stautory mortality tables), anticipated wages based on education, profession, age, expected working years, family size, support reliance, etc. for a sort of extrapolated "economic" component. Then, to that, is added a "value" of the loss of the person in the lives of the family members. A wrongful death suit is brought by the heirs for the loss suffered by them, so how the loss affects their immediate situation is what the inquiry is aimed at.

Your arguments and jaundiced eye towards putting a "price on life" is not baseless at all. But, as I said, at law, there is only one remedy for an injury--money. The physical or emotional injury cannot be taken back or replaced as it could with a house that was squatted on or car that was stolen. A dead person cannot be brought back to life, so the best we can do is try to make the family "whole" by providing a monetary measure for their loss. The economic loss is pretty easy to identify. The emotional and physical loss of something (an arm or the like) or someone (in the case of a death) is harder to quantify with money. But it's the best measure the law has to remedy a harm.

And, as a sideline, although punishment is not normally considered part of these tort damages (punitive damages are very rare, and require willful conduct by the tortfeasor, not merely negligence), it's expected that the economic impact on the tortfeasor will cause them to be prospectively more cautious and take reasonable steps to assure that they meet their duty of care to others.

Lastly, you are absolutely correct--the inside of a courtroom is unlikely, except for the pre-trial motions for summary judgment and the like. This is probably going to be settled, as 99% of civil cases are.
 
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