Failure To Conduct Adequate Pre-Employment Criminal Background Search Costs Assisted Living Facilty $750,000
A jury awarded $750,000 to a disabled man who was a resident at Cote De Neige Home for Adults after he was sexually assaulted by a worker at the facility. The lawsuit was brought against the assisted living facility for their failure to conduct an adequate pre-hiring background search before hiring a certified nursing assistant.
Junious Boyd Batten, the CNA who was allegedly involved in the sexual assault, currently faces five counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of carnal knowledge and one count of abuse and neglect for incidents that occurred between 2006 and mid-2007 while he was employed by Cote De Neige.
According to claims made in the lawsuit against Cote De Neige, Batten was a known criminal--both before and during his employment at Cote De Neige. The lawsuit claims Batten was charged with 13 criminal offenses-- including four criminal convictions (public intoxication, two assault and battery charges and one contempt of court charge) during the course of his employment as a CNA.
Too often, in situations such as this, facilities are let off the hook because they claim they lack knowledge about an employees violent tendencies. While this case may be extreme-- in terms of the extensive list of criminal charges Batten faced before and during the course of his employment-- this verdict should serve as a reminder to all facilities that they must do an pre-employment job screening and continually supervise all employees.
Incidentally, this verdict includes $500,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. Consequently, even if this facility files for bankruptcy the owner of the facility will remain responsible for payment of the punitive aspect of this case.
Read more about this case involving a judgment against an assisted living facility for failing to conduct an adequate pre-employment screening of an employee here.
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Interesting post and great blog. Thanks for keeping everyone aware of these terrible cases. Depressing stuff, but it is obviously important that a bright light is shone on them.
Thanks for the words of encouragement. Unfortunately, our society chooses to turn its back on our elders. If people saw abuse and neglect firsthand there would be an uproar. Until then, I remain committed to sharing this information.
I can tell you that he has worked there no more than a year and a half because my mother filed a claim with a different nursing home where she was in rehab against the same individual. Unfortunately she passed away before any legal action could be taken. It's sad that someone like that has been out there all this time. I'm just glad he finally got caught. Hopefully they can still use the police reports and documentation to strengthen the case against him.
I think that's insane that a criminal background check wasn't done. I thought that every company had to do that in order to hire someone. A lot of companies are starting to use a PEO to take care of issues like these. The PEO administers all pre-employment testing and the results go to the company who then decided whether to send an applicant through to in person interviewing. Maybe this company should start to do something similar to avoid lawsuits.
Sometimes it's really that simple, isn't it? I feel a little stupid for not thinking of this myself/earlier, though.
Due Diligence issue. Good thing.
Pre-employment background check is a must if you want to protect your business and your other employees. For example, there is a case of a guy that if the company had done a pre-employment screening background check on his criminal record, you would have found that he has a history of assaulting women and could not be a good candidate to work in the call center at night with other female colleagues. Future behavior can be predicted by past conduct as shown by many studies.