What's it worth?

[Rick]

What do female porn stars make per photo session?

$500/750 per?

Count the number of times each was filmed.

Then add it up.

The cat's already out of the bag so to speak...

[Sue U]

So this guy could go bankrupt for something his janitor did?

If by "this guy" you mean "a large maintenance services company doing business throughout the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region and Florida," and by "bankrupt" you mean "seeking coverage under a liability insurance policy purchased for such protection," then yes.

Fun quote from their company website:

Accountability from top to bottom

It seems that the larger a service company gets, the less of it there is. And often, no matter whom you talk to in the organization about your issue, the responsibility lies with someone else.

XXXXX has never operated that way and never will. Our competitive advantage is a company-wide spirit of personal responsibility.

Everyday, it starts at the top. Our five co-founders don't sit behind desks. They are operational managers who are directly involved in servicing facilities and take personal responsibility to make sure our XXXXX team is not just meeting your expectations but exceeding them regularly.

They have also created an entrepreneurial culture that encourages XXXXX employees to deliver a personalized level of service unlike any you've experienced; always looking for ways to improve quality and cut your costs. And solving problems before they become problems for you.

It's how we do business.

Accountability from top to bottom? Principals take personal responsibility? Funny, they've organized as an LLC (limited liability company), a business form expressly designed to shield owners from personal responsibility (while retaining the pass-through tax advantages of a partnership). Hahaha.

Okay, I still need help here. Let me ask you all to answer the following questions:

What is the value of each woman's claim and how do you calculate it (if you use any method at all; but method is not required, you have complete discretion)?

What share of responsibility should each of the following bear?
--Janitor
--Janitorial Services Company
--Property Management Company
--Building Owners (another LLC, if that matters to you)

[rubato]

The questions I would ask as a juror are:

Does any janitorial services company provide a level of supervision which would make this impossible. or nearly so? Is there an industry std of practice here which can be determined which would show that this particular company was negligent? Is the planting of recording devices a well-known and common problem which a responsible supervisor can be expected to know about and to have measures in place to detect/deter such things. Unless you can show those things then perhaps they pay nothing.

I would ask the same question about the property management company and also whether they retained any responsibility for someone who was not their direct employee.

I would ask whether it is reasonable to claim that the supervision of janitors MUST cost the amount to society which that level of oversight will require.

I would ask if this employee had a history of doing such things and if it can be proven they knew this.

The case against the janitor is solid but so far I have heard nothing which would make anyone else liable.

$90,000 per victim is the result of multiplying an imaginary number by another number. I don't see any relationship to the harm done. They were so traumatized that it cost them 2 years of family income worth of worry? 4160 hours worth of anguish? How many of the victims suffer no anguish at all? They'll put their hands out for the money which mephistopheles is holding out to them and they'll lie about their anguish under a naked inducement to corruption but in fact it would never give them a second's pause.


Maybe you could pay for some social psychological research into just how many and to what degree people might actually be harmed? Interview representative groups of women (who are under no financial inducement to lie as these women are) and use their reactions to gauge what % of women say "no trauma" what % say "slight" &c and use that to calculate.


Well this is very honest cynicism for you:

Any of the numbers can be jigged according to your judgment of what a jury might find reasonable.

yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

Aren't janitorial companies like that required to be bonded?

If so, take the amount of the bond per person...

[Gob]

--Janitor 99%
--Janitorial Services Company 1%
--Property Management Company 0%
--Building Owners (another LLC, if that matters to you) 0%

[Sue U]

Anyone else want to take a whack at this? I'd really like to get a few more opinions from you folks as to value of the women's claims and apportionment of responsibility. Again:

What is the value of each woman's claim? How do you calculate it, if you use any method at all? No method is required, and you have complete discretion to award what you think is fair however you choose to measure it.

What share of responsibility should each of the following bear?
--Janitor
--Janitorial Services Company
--Property Management Company
--Building Owners

(I'll tell you my thoughts about it later, and I'd like your opinions whether you think my approach makes sense, but for now I'd just like your views on the questions above.)

[Scooter]

$90,000 per victim is the result of multiplying an imaginary number by another number.

Such is the nature of computing any non-economic loss, except that for "imaginary" I would substitute "subjective". Damages such as pain and suffering, loss of mobility, loss of reputation, none of these is fully objectively quantifiable in dollars and cents, but monetary compensation is the yardstick we have, and that requires making a judgment. In this case, a judgment based on the frequency of the invasion of privacy is as justifiable as any other.

Well this is very honest cynicism for you:

Any of the numbers can be jigged according to your judgment of what a jury might find reasonable.

Nothing cynical at all. I don't know how often the average woman uses the restroom in the course of a workday, I don't know how many days these particular women worked in the course of the year, and I don't know what a reasonable person might judge to be the monetary value to assign to the harm of being videorecorded while urinating and defecating or of having same posted all over the Web. So I used some numbers that appeared reasonable to me, but which Sue, based on her knowledge and experience, might choose to revise, if indeed she saw any merit at all in this approach.