Trial Guides is proud to share a recent verdict received by Lindsay Wilz and Duane Lillehaug of Maring Williams Law Office, P.C., on a negligent supervision/sexual assault incident that occurred in 2019. The jury found that a Fargo, North Dakota, couple was partially liable in a case involving alcohol intoxication and unsupervised minors.
Lindsay used lessons from Jesse Wilson’s Witness Preparation: How to Tell the Winning Story, Richard Friedman and Patrick Malone’s Rules of the Road: A Plaintiff Lawyer’s Guide to Proving Liability, and Phillip H. Miller and Paul J. Scoptur’s Advanced Depositions Strategy and Practice to reach this important verdict.
The Incident
At the time of the incident, the plaintiff was a 15-year-old girl staying at the home of her best friend. Her friend’s parents (the defendants) were home at the time and were aware that the plaintiff was spending the night, which had happened several times before; the girls had met and been friends since before kindergarten.
Three boys joined the girls in the basement of the defendants’ home that evening: one was the plaintiff’s boyfriend at the time, whom the defendants had met, and the other two boys the defendants had only met at the door when they arrived around 11:00 PM. Throughout the night, the girls drank and became increasingly intoxicated. At approximately 1:00 AM, the plaintiff was sexually assaulted by her then-boyfriend. At the time of the assault, she was intoxicated and incapacitated in a way that prevented her from providing consent.
At no point throughout the night did the defendants physically check on the teens. They texted their daughter that they were forbidden from drinking alcohol, and that the boys should leave by 1:00 AM at the latest. Instead, the defendants went to sleep knowing the boys were still in their home. The boys ended up sleeping over that evening in the same bed as the girls in the basement and did not leave the home until around 9:00 AM the following morning. Even then, the defendants didn’t know the boys had stayed over or left the house that morning.
The plaintiff brought a suit against the defendant homeowners for failing to supervise or otherwise protect her while she was in their home and under their supervision.
Making the Case for Negligent Supervision
Lindsay and team alleged that the defendant homeowners failed to supervise the teenagers by failing to physically check on them and enforce their two rules: (1) no drinking; and (2) boys must leave the house at 1:00 AM.
The negligent supervision claim stemmed from the fact that the homeowners never physically checked on the teenagers, despite knowing that the girls had previously consumed alcohol in their home and despite knowing that there were at least two boys in their home.
Under state law, intentional acts of perpetrators are compared to the fault of negligent actors in the jury’s deliberations —making this case exceptionally more difficult.
The Trial
As reported in In Forum, the civil trial was held before a nine-person jury of six men and three women. The case became a four-day trial based upon the plaintiff’s claim of negligent supervision.
The defense argued in a motion for summary judgment that there was no way the defendants could have reasonably foreseen that such an act would take place at their home that evening; presiding Judge Nicholas Chase denied this motion, stating that the question of reasonable foreseeability was one to be decided by a jury.
The defense further argued that all of the fault fell to the boy who assaulted the plaintiff. Defense counsel averred that there were no red flags to indicate such an event would transpire; the defendant’s daughter testified that it was “evil” to blame her parents for what happened, and that it could just as easily have happened at the plaintiffs’ house.
Lindsay argued that the defendants failed to protect and supervise the minors under their care, and that this negligence presented the opportunity for the plaintiff to be sexually assaulted. The plaintiff’s father testified that “the life has been sucked out of” his once “bubbly, happy, and full-of-energy” daughter since her assault. He noted that she had become isolated and “broken” in the years following the assault.
Six weeks before the assault, the defendant-mother caught the girls drinking at home on Labor Day weekend. She told the girls that “bad things can happen,” when they drink. Lindsay’s closing argument made reference to this encounter, noting that the defendants did not disclose that incident to the plaintiff’s parents; for that reason, “[they] were the only adults who could have reasonably anticipated what happened that night.”
The Verdict
After 2.5 hours of deliberation, the jury placed 40% of the fault on the defendant homeowners for negligently supervising the teenagers. (58% of the fault was assigned to the assailant and 2% of the fault went to the man who supplied the alcohol.) They awarded the client $250,000 for noneconomic damages. The jury also found no fault on the plaintiff, which is a huge win for her and all victims of sexual assault.
“We are elated with the outcome,” Lindsay said to the Forum. “It is great for [the victim] to be validated—as a victim, to be told by a jury of her peers that this was not her fault. And for the [defendants] to be held responsible—it is a great day for our justice system.”
Trial Guides Titles in Action
In securing this fantastic verdict, Lindsay employed lessons from three Trial Guides titles:
Jesse Wilson’s Witness Preparation:
“Jesse and I spent an entire day with the client, prepping her to take the stand,” Lindsay explains. “Jesse used the same tactics that he discusses in Witness Preparation to get her to be able to tell her story. This was the heart of this case: being able to express how this had affected her. I framed a part of my opening, and structured my storytelling, as Jesse recommends in his book.”
Richard Friedman and Patrick Malone’s Rules of the Road:
Rules of the Road teaches lawyers to establish a commonly accepted standard, and then demonstrate a breach of that standard. “The defendant gave me their rules early on,” Lindsay says. “Using the Rules of the Road technique, I was able to take those rules and show how they did not follow them. When the defendants spelled out their commonly accepted standard, it was easy to underscore the fact that they did not follow their own rules.”
Phillip H. Miller and Paul J. Scoptur’s Advanced Depositions Strategy & Practice:
“I have read Advanced Depositions Strategy and Practice probably twice; I was very specific on how I set up the story,” explains Lindsay. “In taking the defendant’s deposition, I used their ‘circling back’ technique, and pinned them down to sound bites that they were not able to wiggle from at trial. This really firmed up my timeline of the case, which was so important.”
A Final Word of Thanks
Lindsay wishes to thank her trial partner, Duane Lillehaug, and the Maring Williams team for their help in reaching this milestone verdict.