Friday Nooz

That girl in Kentucky won her suit against McDonalds.

Good thing. Why, you ask? The girl was victimized in a humiliating way for over 3 hours and sexually abused during the time she was held hostage at her place of employment.

In America, in 2004 to now, being 18 is about the equivalent of being 13 back in 1965-67 when it comes to knowing what the law can and cannot do to it's citizens. Civics and government is not taught in most schools and when it is, it is maybe a 2-3 week section that glosses over the basics.

So many people are thinking, "Oh, she was 18, she was an adult." Sure, by most states' laws, she had achieved her legal majority, but that alone does not make her an adult or equip her to stand up to the "authority" she was confronted with and let her say "No" both to her manager and the guy on the phone who purported to be a cop.

Since McDonalds had run into a similar scam before, they had a corporate responsibiity to inform ALL their employees that these kinds of things were occurring and that under NO circumstances were they to comply with any phone demands. And they should have repeated the warning; in fact, it should be written into the employee handbook as per how to handle law enforcement contacts. That should be basic. However, the problem was exacerbated by a regional manager who didn't think the information about these scams/hoaxes was important enough to pass on because of "vague" wording in a communication sent out from the home office.

Lets move along now.

The three Duke University Lacrosse players accused of raping that stripper are suing ex-prosecutor Nifong, the cops involved in the case, and the city of Durham, NC under federal law for the way their arrest and all was handled. They should. Nifong withheld exonerating evidence in order to make his case. The community does have culpability in this. After all, he was elected to office by the voters. The cops were employees of the city. So the legal entity of the City has responsibility for them as well.

Sometimes law suits are necessary to right wrongs. Neither case struck me as frivilous.

Click the title for the story about the McDonalds case.