Well. What if some cult leader had convinced you that Uranium was good for you? Yellowcake anyone?
Who cares what some cult leader convinced Jayne to do? The buck has to stop somewhere. Jayne is running a business. It doesn't really matter if she has snow or cheese between her ears, she still has certain responsibilities inherent to running a business. Period.
If she were giving out the Benchmark wisdom by handing it out to people on a street corner for free, then you can wax poetic about whether she was snowed or is snowing. Realistically, as everyone here knows, it is more than a little of both.
Do note that there is a difference between personal culpability and professional culpability.
If a staff member's actions were outside the company norm, then that individual could be held to task, on an individual basis, for destructive actions towards George. From what I've read, those actions were within Benchmark's standard modus operandi. They were, in fact, SOP. Correct me if I am wrong here, please.
Correct. I'm not arguing that Bencmark, or the staff involved in the incident, aren't
responsible for the suicide. I'm just saying that they may not have
intended to cause harm.
Even in such a case, i.e., with regards to an out-of-line staff person, Benchmark would still be culpable because they did not train or supervise their staff appropriately.
Very true. But it depends on whose view of what is appropriate training. Most folks value science, proven methods, etc... The troubled teen industry generally tends to "wing it" and use "what works" based on trial and (tragic) error. They also seem to have a somewhat different definition of "success".
And they have a responsibility to do so, contractually as well as that just inherent to running any kind of business.
When Larry Dubinsky could not be dissuaded from keeping his pawing fingers off of female students at Hyde, and a parent sued, both Larry Dubinsky and Hyde School were deemed culpable. Dubinsky's actions were beyond the pale – individual culpability, both personal as well as professional (he was faculty, even dean of Students at one point). Meanwhile, Hyde was not only negligent in that they were not able to keep him in check (they apparently did not try, probably because they did not take the years of complaints seriously)
If the staff member was doing anything remotely like you describe, there should have never even been an attempt to keep him in check. He should have been immediately fired, arrested, and prosecuted. Perhaps the school thought that he could be convinced to stop doing what he was doing (avoiding embarrassment for the school).
but also since they continued to require contact between the Plaintiff and Dubinsky even after formal complaints were made.
Note that what I said above has to do with legal justice, which is but a crude approximation of true moral justice.
Very true.
