Strip-search Costs McD's $6.1M

Jurors say franchise negligent in hoax
By Asta Hostetter,  Newser User
Posted Oct 6, 2007 10:03 AM CDT
Strip-search Costs McD's $6.1M
Louise Ogborn, center, with her attorneys Kirsten Daniel, left, and Ann Oldfather, right. A jury found McDonald's liable in Ogborn's hoax strip search civil suit in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, Friday, October 5, 2007. (AP Photo / David Harpe)   (Associated Press)

A Kentucky jury has ordered McDonald's to pay $6.1 million to settle the case of an employee who was strip-searched in the fast-food restaurant as part of a hoax. Jurors gave Louise Ogborn, 18 at the time, hefty punitive damages because McDonald's didn't seem all that concerned about warning employees about a roving prankster, the Courier-Journal reported.

The prankster called the restaurant, claimed to be a police officer and told a manager to search Ogburn because she was accused of theft. Similar pranks had occurred at other restaurants. "It just was wasn't important to them, getting the word around," said one juror of McDonald's. Jurors gave Ogburn $5 million and the duped manager $1.1 million. (More sexual abuse stories.)

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