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Jaycee Dugard awarded $20 million settlement

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100701/...irl_settlement

Quote:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A woman who bore two children while being held prisoner for nearly two decades will receive $20 million from the state of California after claiming parole officers failed to do their job and find her while monitoring a convicted rapist.

Lawmakers approved the settlement Thursday for Jaycee Dugard, now 30, and her two daughters, who resurfaced last August after being held in a secret backyard by a suspect identified by authorities as Phillip Garrido.

"It is compensation for three people for the rest of their lives who have been horribly damaged over a period of 17 or 18 years," mediator Daniel Weinstein told The Associated Press.

Dugard and her daughters, ages 15 and 12, filed claims in February, saying parole agents with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began supervising Garrido in 1999 but didn't discover them.

The Dugard family members claimed psychological, physical and emotional damages.

"I can't emphasize enough that we've got to be much more prudent in terms of how we provide oversight for released prisoners in the state of California," Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Granite Bay, said.

The money will be used to buy the family a home, ensure privacy, pay for education, replace lost income and cover what will likely be years of therapy, said Weinstein, a retired San Francisco County Superior Court judge. In addition, much of the money will be placed in long-term investments, he said.

"It was not an effort to make reparations for the years of abuse and incarceration or imprisonment against their will, because ... the damages to these people were incalculable," Weinstein said in a telephone interview. "Part of this was a prudent effort by the state to shut off liability from a catastrophic verdict."

Weinstein praised the state for quickly accepting responsibility, and the Dugards for accepting a reasonable settlement at a time when the state faces a $19 billion budget deficit. He said the scope of the claim was unprecedented in his 20 years as a mediator because of the duration of the crime and that it led to the birth of two children.

The news reports have raised a lot of questions (and this has been on the news A LOT tonight): Is $20 million a "reasonable" settlement? Should they (Jaycee and her daughters) have received more for how horrible this was? Should they not have been awarded so much because of the state's already massive debt? How can a price be put on such a heinous crime? Discuss.

one more question:

how is california going to pay for this, since the state is basically broke?

Quote:

Originally Posted by christiangirl (Post 1949918)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100701/...irl_settlement

The news reports have raised a lot of questions (and this has been on the news A LOT tonight): Is $20 million a "reasonable" settlement? Should they (Jaycee and her daughters) have received more for how horrible this was? Should they not have been awarded so much because of the state's already massive debt? How can a price be put on such a heinous crime? Discuss.

This was essentially to pre-empt a lawsuit that she almost certainly would have won but in court and in the public's eyes. She probably could have won more in court but this is enough that she never has to 'want' for life.
And you can't put a price on it, not really. It's enough to hopefully make CA fix their sex offender monitoring so it NEVER happens again. (This isn't so much payment for the crime, it's payment for the failure of the state to track the rapist or to even CHECK his backyard following complaints by neighbors.)
It's up to CA to figure out how to pay for it among their other debts, I suspect they owe schools more than they owe her based on Illinois' own financial woes.

In other news, today The Governator commanded that 200,000 state workers in California should receive the federal minimum wage for the July pay period. He did this to prove a point with the legislators - who have not yet passed a budget - but it's unclear whether the 200,000 state workers includes the legislators. An absolutely horrible thing to do to all of those workers and their families just to make a statement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB (Post 1950116)

FWIW, they get back pay once the budget's passed. It's not awesome but they're not screwed entirely.

We had the issue here when IL couldn't pass a budget but instead they were just not going to get paid. The state worker's credit union was prepared to offer no interest loans (for good will's sake), but I think they just barely passed it in time.

If the legislators can't pass the bill, they'll bet he ones to pay, not the gov. He's out no matter what.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drolefille (Post 1950118)

FWIW, they get back pay once the budget's passed. It's not awesome but they're not screwed entirely.

That's why I think it's stupid and wrong. It's not like he's saving the state any money in the end. He's instead pulling the rug out from under people - with no notice - just to prove a point. Those people have families and budgets of their own, and he just gave all of them the finger because he's upset with one group of people. How does this help get the budget done?

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB (Post 1950148)

It makes the union put pressure on the legislators to stop fighting and sign the damn budget. I think it's interesting that they actually have a provision that lets the employees get paid at all without a budget since it was more of an automatic thing here than the governor making a point.

Hopefully the union will help the workers (and I'm assuming that the state workers are unionized her but that's been my experience.) I think it sucks that they're the ones who get hurt in the process, but it's probably more effective than anything else.

I hope I'm not eventually paying for that.

re: the $20 million settlement... Please don't get me wrong, I feel really bad for the situation she and her daughters were in... But As a resident of the state of California, I did nothing wrong, it's not my fault that these Parole Officers didn't do their jobs... So why in the heck do I have to pay for it??

re: the Govenator making the state employees work for minimum wage - our State Controller has appealed it, and will not be abiding by this "order" from Arnold, he will pay everyone at their same pay level (at least that's the last that I heard of it on the news last night). Once again, it's none of these 200k employees fault that the government isn't doing their job, and not getting the budget passed on time!

But that's just my 2 cents on it all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SapphireSphinx9 (Post 1950305)

You elect the officials who make the laws and hire the people who run the state and the system failed in this case, not just a few guys. That's why you get to pay for it. My city just settled a lawsuit, I wasn't the one who hired the guys who hung a noose in front of a co-worker's office as a "joke." But my taxes pay for it just the same.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the pay thing. I don't agree with it per se, but the automatic "we can' pay anyone" thing that happens in Illinois was incredibly effective at getting a budget passed. I think CA's biggest issue is the referendum -> law policy that creates unfunded mandates. Ok maybe not biggest, but one OF the biggest.

The "why do I have to pay for this!" argument still doesn't work - you pay for it because the government acts as a representative of the people.

Put another way: BP shareholders didn't spill any oil, but they'll ultimately pay for the disaster.

$20 million seems reasonable on face, and matches up well with my (exceptionally lazy and surface-level) search of verdicts on CA - it's a rounding error in terms of the government's mess, as well.