Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

WWASP Class Action Information

<< < (2/3) > >>

anon:
[ This Message was edited by: KarenZ on 2003-10-17 10:30 ]

Anonymous:
thanks karenz.  i will call on monday and let you know what i find out.

Anonymous:
Why stop at WWASP?  You may be aware that MANY programs follow the WWASP model - points, levels, privledges, consequences,etc. In fact, they know that the wwasp model works and many were opened by former employees.  Most charge much more than WWASP too, offer little or no indepth parent resources/support, or aftercare.

So why not just go after everybody and not limit it to wwasp?? This suit seems to be good for the other schools to get more kids into their program, so why not get them exposed as well??

spots:
I believe the hold-up right now on filing the suit has to do with identifying all the responsible companies which need to be identified as defendants.  I have seen a spread sheet with nearly 50 different company names, a great many of whom have an address in St. George (same suite # as WWASPS).  Many many "responsible parties" names are one-in-the-same, essentially family members of Lichfield/Facer/Kay/Atkins.  Huron Law has an excellent reputation for class actions: they know what they're doing, and there can be a very large payoff if successful.

I feel the best strategy is to target the "biggest and best" (Lichfield's own words in a newspaper interview).  If it can fall and lose hundreds of millions of dollars, the ripple effect will discourage copycats and hopefully scare off parents who feel comfortable with shipping their kids off anywhere for a "fix".

FaceKhan:
WWASP has been around for a while, they have an investment in staying around. They have deep pockets from their 80 million dollar per year revenues of which a lot of it is profit and goes into the pockets of the Kay/Lichfield/Atkins families.

They are also very big and a judgment against them would lead to the closing of 10 of the worst programs as well as preventing their opening any more.

The goal of a class action suit like this is to utterly annihilate the target with a judgment so large that every Kay/Atkins/Lichfield will be bankrupted, in addition the discovery process along with any court testimony (assuming it goes to court) will probably reveal all kinds of criminal activities that may result in charges later on. The programs will close, the people and companies will declare bankruptcy and will possibly end up being prosecuted. As for money, it is going to be swallowed by the lawyers with maybe a pittance paid to members of the class and quite possibly a large collection by the IRS since these programs often avoid taxation by claiming non-profit status which could be exposed as fraudulent when its revealed how much profit has actually been made.  


My hope is that any money that remains can be put into a foundation to provide legal representation for kids in and out of these programs as well as lobbying for outlawing these gulags.

As for the statute of limitations, I know that it is a bit different in each state. A lot of states allow someone to sue till 21 for anything that occured before 18 and then its a 3 year limitation from 18 on. However in California, didn't they pass a law that made it so there is no statute of limitations on child abuse?




[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-08-02 13:51 ]

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-08-02 13:53 ]

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page