T-shirt gets Van Nuys woman kicked out of federal building

reply to post by round_eyed_dog

---

Actually, male cattle are known as bulls. The female, particularly those who have already birthed calves, are known as cows. Female whales, buffalo and manatees are also known as cows, for example.





[edit on 8/31/0808 by jackinthebox]

Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, we could get back to the subject at hand and off Bovine semantics?

Maybe start a thread on the subject?

Semper

To re-cap my own opinion of the topic, the guard did nothing illegal or beyond his authority. But therein lay the real problem. Our rights are checked at the discretion of security and law enforcement personnel as they see fit.

Why do you think there are so many laws out there that no one even knows what they are? And I'm not talking about the old "walking your cow down Main Street on a Sunday" type laws here. But real laws, that are applied everyday, so that the officer can do whatever they want, Constitution be damned. I can guarantee you that even if you think you are a "good law-abiding citizen" I could find something to write you for in a traffic stop. And private security takes that a step further. Guards don't even need any law to find you in violation of. They need no probable cause.

EDIT to add: For me, this issue has zero to do with the word "lesbian." It could have read "baby killer," or "cop killer" or even had a Transformer holding a gun like that guy who was booted out of the airport for such.

[edit on 8/31/0808 by jackinthebox]

---

---

True they don't need probable cause, but don't security guards face the possibility of civil lawsuits that don't apply to police officers?

Link

Link

This is not really directly dealing with the shirt thing, but these are a couple of examples of security guards tagged with large civil suits.

reply to post by round_eyed_dog

---

You are quite correct. Guards are not extended the civil protections enjoyed by the police. Another key distinction between the two is that the police can arrest you without charges (for the purposes of investigation) and hold you for 24 hours. In most instances, the power of arrest for a security guard is simply that of any other civilian. So if you arrest someone, you better be sure.

EDIT to add: Notice the details of the cases you have cited too. They were so extreme, that even a cop would have been in trouble. Also note that the companies were sued, not the guards themselves.



[edit on 8/31/0808 by jackinthebox]

[edit on 8/31/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by jackinthebox

---

Speaking as an employee of a company that gets sued every so often, don't kid yourself. When the company gets sued they will perform a rigid Cost Benefit Analysis on the cost of the suit. They in a majority of the cases find that the employee is provably acting outside the company regulations and refuses to fund a defense. Essentially, they say: We had rules, he broke them. Here you can have him.

reply to post by wytworm

---

It's not up to the company to decide wether or not they will get sued. Any lawyer knows that they're never going to squeeze the big payday out of some poor schmuck making minimum wage. And it is for that reason that the company might very well mount a vigorous defense of their employee, acting in their own self-interest.

Not that there aren't companies that won't hang their people out to dry, of course. I was laid off for breaking my arm at a post, at the request of the client. I should have sued.

Then you have to consider the smaller companies. Like the ones that only have a few close and connected employees, maybe ex-cops. I know a guy who has owned three different companies because he was sued twice. Shut down the company, no one left to sue.



[edit on 9/1/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by jackinthebox

---

Actually it IS up to the company to manage their own liability. Don't think for a moment that they miss this point as it is the fundamental purpose of the corporate structure. That is to say, they manage whether or not they are sue-able. And yes, all they have to do is demonstrate that the guard was trained, signed saying he was trained, and that the infraction was in violation of his training. Again, this is not speculation I have personally witnessed 4 cases. # of them the defendant was cut loose and sued as an individual and nothing was actionable against the corporation.

reply to post by wytworm

---

That still does not absolve the company of responsibility. They might be able to succesfully defend themselves by showing that the employee was acting contrary to policy, but then again maybe not. That would be up to the jury to decide.

I'm not saying you're lieing either though. I too have seen guards held personally accountable. Sadly, in cases where the company should have stood up for the guard.

In this particular case, it seems that the attire of the visitors to building was a topic covered in the standing Post Orders, and the interpretation of that order is the crux of this case. I doubt that the security company has a standing policy, in direct contradiction of the Post Orders, explicitly stating that a guard can not take action against attire that might be considered "objectionable."

reply to post by jackinthebox

---

Its only up for the jury to decide if it is brought to trial. In all of those cases above, both sides knew that the suit against the company was un-actionable and thus any pursuit of same would be considered a nuisance suit and therefore not pursued.


[edit on 1-9-2008 by wytworm]

reply to post by wytworm

---

But then again, we so those multi-million dollar suits cited earlier (a page or two back) that might too have been considered frivelous, but were not. I would think that the company would have a policy or two against lieing about someone stealing just to beat the person up, and yet the company was held accountable, not the guard/employee.