McDonald's has lost its appeal of a $6.1 million jury award to former employee and strip-search victim Louise Ogborn, according to the Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal. The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the company's legal department was aware of hoax calls made to its restaurants but neither warned or trained managers or employees about the calls.
Ogborn was searched and forced to strip after someone posing as a police officer called a Mount Washington, Ky., restaurant in 2004 and claimed she had stolen a customer's purse.
From The Courier-Journal:
In a unanimous decision, the court also said that the $5 million awarded to Ogborn in punitive damages for McDonald's "reprehensible" behavior was justified because the evidence showed the company repeatedly "placed a higher value on corporate reputation than on the safety of its own employees" over the 10 years it knew about the hoax calls.A three-judge panel also upheld the judgment for former assistant manager Donna J. Summers, who claimed she was duped into executing the search because of the company's failure to warn her about the hoaxes. But the court cut her $1 million punitive damage award to $400,000, saying the jury's verdict was excessive. Summers was also awarded $100,000 in compensatory damages. ...A spokeswoman for McDonald's USA said Friday the company is "extremely disappointed" with the decision but hasn't decided whether it will ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear the case."McDonald's is not disputing that what happened to Ms. Ogborn was wrong," spokeswoman Danya Proud said in a prepared statement. "However, it has been our position throughout these proceedings that she was the victim of a malicious hoax perpetrated by individuals not representing McDonald's."
