Originally posted by dox
As a current civil trial lawyer and former prosecutor - - a criminal conviction is the first step towards a civil suit. That is their goal. Don't kid yourself about it. When I was a prosecutor i had so many cases where the "victim" would adamantly pursue a criminal charge and I would have his/her civil attorney constantly calling me, putting pressure on me. Why? Something known as collateral estoppel. In many cases, once you have a criminal conviction, you can go into civil court and liability is already established due to the criminal conviction. Makes it that much easier b.c. that person can no longer dispute liability b.c. they either admitted their guilty or were found guilty in criminal court. In this instance, it will be disney who will be sued in civil court along with "tigger", as "tigger" is a disney employee. Tigger if found guilty, will not be able to dispute the civil suit. In turn, there is an argument that although disney was not part of the criminal matter, tigger is their employee acting in the course and scope of his duties at the time of the incident, and his conviction should prevent disney from arguing they are not negligent. Prob. won't work, but it will be one argument availble to the plaintiff.
That said, I dealt with a lot of sexual abuse victims. And yes it's true some people wait to report abuse. I tend to give some credence to the first family that spoke out as they apparently reported the incident to disney while they were still on vacation. But for ex. this Rivera person in the article. Her story is highly suspect. I represent a woman who was raped in an elevator. She avoids elevators at all costs and won't ride in them alone when she does. She literally shakes with fear. But Ms. Rivera has no problems with characters, just tigger and returned to the park a few times and never made a complaint.
What is really scary about all this is that these people who have now climbed out of the wood work could potentially damage the reputation of many innocent people. Often times the police will make an arrest on an accusation alone without corroborating evidence. I took a pic with Tigger a few years ago, i cuold turn around now and say tigger touched me. And chances are it isn't even the same guy who may have touched this family. Scary stuff.
