A Texas jury has ordered Charter Communications to pay $7 billion in punitive damages to the family of an 83-year-old grandmother robbed and murdered by a cable repairman who arrived in the company’s van while off the clock.
Charter, which owns Spectrum, was also deemed responsible last month for $337.5 million in compensatory damages for the December 2019 murder of Betty Jo McClain Thomas.
Negligence cases like Thomas’ rarely go to trial, and usually settle out of court – and out of the public eye – without the company admitting to wrongdoing. That’s often been true even when consumers were assaulted, tortured, raped or murdered.
In a written statement this week from Charter spokesman Rich Ruggiero, the company said it would appeal the verdict: “The law in Texas and the facts presented at trial clearly show this crime was not foreseeable — and the plaintiffs’ claims of wrongdoing by Charter are categorically false.”
Roy James Holden pleaded guilty to Thomas’ murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Thomas’ attorneys said that Holden had lied about his past jobs and Charter hadn’t verified his employment. Had the company done so and discovered the lie, he would have been disqualified from being hired.
Read more: USA Today
