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The
Cost of Not Doing Background Checks
Manor Park
Nursing Home in Texas failed to do a criminal background check
of an employee who later sexually assaulted a resident of the
nursing home. The jury awarded the plaintiff $1.1 million.
By Carroll Lachnit
The result of not doing a background screening could be theft,
embezzlement, a shooting, a sexual assault, or a lawsuit.
In California, plaintiffs suing companies for negligent hiring
win about 60 percent of the time, says employment-law attorney
Patti White, a partner in the San Jose office of Littler Mendelson.
In 2000, the average verdict in losing such a case was $870,390,
says Barry J. Nadell, president of InfoLink Screening Services.
Nadell and White gave the following specific examples of the cost
of doing nothing:
- Trusted
Health Resources hired of Jesse L. Rogers in 1991 as an aide
in a home health care program, but never conducted a criminal
background check and failed to discover Rogers' six larceny-related
convictions in Massachusetts. Rogers was later convicted of
stabbing to death John Ward, a quadriplegic under his care,
and the victim's grandmother. Ward's parents brought suit against
Trusted Health, winning compensatory and punitive damages of
$26.5 million and sending Trusted Health into bankruptcy.
- An Oakland
civil jury awarded more than $11 million to a woman's husband
after she was murdered in 1998 by a carpet cleaner dispatched
by America's Best Carpet Care. The man had never undergone the
kind of background check that would have uncovered his violent
criminal past.
- Manor
Park Nursing Home in Texas failed to do a criminal background
check of an employee who later sexually assaulted a resident
of the nursing home. The jury awarded the plaintiff $1.1 million.
- A county
in Texas failed to do a background check of a reserve deputy
sheriff it had hired. After just a few days on the job, he injured
a passenger in a car during a traffic stop. The reserve deputy
had a criminal record, including assault and battery, was on
probation at the time of the attack, and also had an outstanding
arrest warrant. The jury awarded the injured passenger $818,000.
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