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- by Geoffrey Waggoner

 

For those of you have, or have considered having, a monitored home security system, you may be interested to hear of a man whose house burned down without his service knowing about it until he informed them by phone, after a two week hospitalization for smoke inhalation.

 

And even with knowledge that he is in temporary quarters, while his home is being rebuilt from the ground up, and even with awareness that their system failed to alert him, or anyone else, when the garage and then the rest of the home caught fire, the company continues to send invoices and, more recently, threaten him by phone.

 

Of course his contract burned up, and the company failed to provide a copy when his lawyer asked for it; but the sample contract, which can be found on its website, makes clear that no matter how convincing its advertisements, if its equipment or service should fail, and you should suffer a loss of property, or personal injuries, or any other damage because of that failure, you have virtually no rights at all.   It is probably the best and boldest example of "fine print" I have ever seen. We will have to wait and see how effective it is.

 

 

 

September 2011:  

- by Geoffrey Waggoner

 

On Sunday, September 27, 2011, The Post and Courier published Geoff Waggoner's Letter to the Editor, in which he outlined the important work this often over-looked organization performs for our community.

 

As a citizen and resident of Charleston County, I was interested in and encouraged by your Sept. 21 editorial which reported, and commented on, the reduction in violent crime in the cities of Charleston and North Charleston. And I certainly share your suggested commendations for the police departments of both jurisdictions.

 

But as a former chairman and long-time member of the board of Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry, Inc., I was disappointed that Crime Stoppers, with its payment of anonymous cash rewards for information leading to arrest, was not mentioned.

 

As I am sure Chiefs Mullen and Zumalt will attest, the role of the eyewitness/informant in the investigation of crimes should not be understated. And the protection of anonymity for those who have valued information to offer should be obvious to all. And finally, there is financial encouragement for those who call, or text, or e-mail, or visit the website, with their tips.

 

Anyone who watches “The First 48 Hours,” or any other similar reality-based television program, will come to understand that the vast majority of “every day in the street” crimes are solved because of the involvement of others who have direct information. The science of CSI is fascinating. But it isn’t day-to-day reality.

 

Since its inception, Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry has received 29,600 anonymous calls, leading to 2,400 arrests, 9,700 cleared cases, $2.1 million of property recovered, and $809,000 of drugs seized. And these results are directly attributable to investigations which are begun with the valuable information provided by informants who aren’t afraid to speak.

 

The City of Charleston Police Department provides our very able and dedicated coordinator, Cpl. Fred Bowie, for the taking and relaying of anonymous tips to the appropriate investigating agency within the five-county area which we serve.

 

And the City of North Charleston provides the office, and the conference facility where the board can hold its regular meetings to discuss and approve the cash rewards And yet, despite the significant role that Crime Stoppers plays with the cooperation of law enforcement in Charleston County’s two largest cities, no funding of any sort is provided by Charleston County.

 

If The Post and Courier chooses to address the reduction of crime in Charleston and North Charleston, and to extol the police departments for their work, we can hardly disagree. But it seems only fair that some mention be made of Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry, and the financial challenges it faces with its program.

 

 

 

 

July 2011: 

- by Geoffrey Waggoner

 

We are now involved in a tragic case which calls to mind the old saying "kids do the darndest things" as well as the latest scientific evidence which tells us why.

 

An eleven year old boy, on his way to a school yard short-cut on the other side of the railroad tracks, wants to show off for some 13 year school chums nearby. So he grabs onto a train, barely moving into the station, at a location where children cross the tracks every day to save almost a mile walk to their school. He has seen others do it, and thinks it will be fun to "ride" for a hundred yards or so, but on his first attempt his book-bag catches and he falls and the train severs his right leg just below the knee.

 

South Carolina, like most states, has long recognized that "between the ages of seven and fourteen years a child is presumed incapable of exercising judgment and discretion requisite to charge it with contributory negligence…" . This is why, for example, a driver on a street where young children are known to play is held to a higher duty of care than he might be on a country road, where he sees only corn and the occasional cow. In other words, the law recognizes what we all understand: children, especially young children, can not be held to the same standards of restraint and care that adults are required to follow.

 

Not only in civil cases, like the one we are involved in, but also in criminal matters, the law has always distinguished between the acts of an adult and a "juvenile" and only where the crime itself is particularly "adult" – where the circumstances are particularly vicious – can the perpetrator be charged as if he was an "adult".

Recently, science has offered visual evidence of what the law has always recognized. In simple terms, that part of the human brain which is responsible for judgment and voluntary behavior is not fully developed until the person is in his early to mid-twenties. And while other parts of the brain are fully developed in the first few years, the part that would persuade someone not to jump on a train, dive off a dock without thinking about the water depth, or tease a guard dog, is not fully formed, and working, until much later in life.

 

So now there is science to explain what the South Carolina Supreme Court and most parents, have always known: "..the duty to avoid doing them an injury increases with their inability to protect themselves, and with their childish indiscretions, instincts and impulses."

Reference:

 

Slomski, Anita. "The Teenage Brain." Protomag.com. Ed. Paul T. Libassi. Fall 2004. proto Massachusetts General Hospital. 17 Nov. 2010 <http://protomag.com/assets/the-teenage-brain>

 

 

 

Palmetto Summerville Behavioral Health center did little to assist police

 

By Glenn Smith

 

gsmith@postandcourier.com

Thursday, April 28, 2011

SUMMERVILLE — Police officer Trey Hardy raced to the teen treatment center eager to help find four runaways who scaled a fence and fled.

 

He pulled into the parking lot and told a worker to get someone who could provide some information on the missing youths.

 

And then Hardy waited.

 

Summerville Police Department released this dashboard camera video and audio of the first officer responding to the report of an escape by 4 youths at Palmetto Summerville Behavioral Health center on April 20.

 

"They don't seem too concerned about it here," Hardy told a fellow officer who radioed for a description of the missing teens.

 

It would be several minutes before anyone came out to talk with Hardy. And when they did, staff members struggled to provide basic descriptions of the teens and offered no specifics as to why they were being housed at Palmetto Summerville Behavioral Health.

 

Hardy's frustrating encounter was captured in a police report and cruiser video footage released Wednesday to The Post and Courier documenting the police response to the teens' April 20 escape from the 60-bed Midland Parkway treatment facility.

 

It wasn't until the following day that police learned the teens had criminal backgrounds and violent pasts in their home city of Washington. When the information finally came, it was from Washington media, who called Summerville police after hearing about the escape, police said.

 

"We were learning from them what we had here," police Sgt. Cassandra Williams said.

 

Williams said she was surprised to learn the next day that the teens had a history of violence. One runaway who remains missing had reportedly been charged in Washington with attempted murder. The staff made no mention of this, Williams said. "How could you not know what's in your house?"

 

If officers had had all the facts, Williams said, they might have been able to get the teens back where they belonged that night, she said.

 

"I wish we had been given everything we needed on day one," she said. "We can only act on what we have knowledge of and go from there. And we were not given all the information that night."

 

Palmetto officials have not responded to repeated questions about the incident, citing patient confidentiality laws. The center released a statement last week saying it is "committed to providing the best possible treatment to its patients and takes their safety and well- being very seriously."

 

The incident has sparked outrage in the community and calls for legislative change. The report and video released Wednesday illustrates the difficulty police encountered in extracting routine details from the staff of Palmetto Summerville Behavioral Health. The scene played out this way:

 

Hardy was called to the Midland Parkway center about 6:30 p.m. to check out a report of four young men running away from the facility. Once he got there, he had to wait 12 minutes before anyone came out to meet him.

 

When he finally met with a staff member, she provided "very vague" information. Staff could not provide a specific location where the four scaled the center's 6-foot wooden fence or a solid time frame for the incident. Hardy was told they ran off while en route to the gym.

 

Staff also had difficulty providing clothing descriptions for three of the missing youths and had to call over to the nursing station to get height and weight measurements for the teens. Staff did not tell Hardy the teens posed a threat to the community.

 

At one point, he specifically asked why they had been sent to the center from Washington. "Are they criminal or mental?"

 

"A little of both," a staff member replied. "They're juveniles sent here because of psychiatric issues and they may have come here because they committed a crime."

 

The only mention of violence came when a staff member told Hardy one youth had attacked a center worker, police said. He ran criminal histories on all four teens but found very little because they are juveniles.

 

Police later learned the teens had been committed to the center by District of Columbia courts under the auspices of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Center. District officials described the teens as having violent criminal histories.

 

Dorchester County sheriff's deputies rounded up three of the teens the next day. The fourth, 19-year-old Delonte Parker, remained the subject of a multi-state manhunt Wednesday with no known sightings, police said.

 

Also on Wednesday, a woman who allegedly was attacked and beaten by a 15-year-old from the center two years ago filed a lawsuit accusing Palmetto Behavioral Health of gross negligence and recklessness in the incident. She is represented by Mount Pleasant attorney Geoffrey H. Waggoner.

 

The victim, Toni Kucish, told police she was climbing from her vehicle on Oct. 12, 2009, when the teen started hitting her, knocking her to the ground. He continued to punch the 64-year-old woman in the head and shoulders while she was down. He ran off after she screamed for help but was quickly caught by staff members from the center, the police report stated.

 

Staff members told police the teen had slipped out a side door and run off after asking to get a drink of water. The teen told police he was angry with staff and decided to take it out on the first person he saw, a police report stated.

 

The lawsuit states the attack left Kucish with long-lasting emotional and psychological trauma, as well as physical complications. The suit alleges Palmetto failed to have adequate staffing, security and safeguards in place to prevent an attack by a client with a known propensity for violence and aggression.

 

 

 

 

By Glenn Smith

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

SUMMERVILLE — Many residents were stunned to learn last week that a local youth treatment center was housing violent teens from outside South Carolina. How could this happen, they wondered.

 

The truth is: The state has almost no control of who is placed in these facilities or where they come from. In many cases, even the local police don't know who is in their backyard.

 

South Carolina is home to 17 of these treatment centers that house nearly 800 kids and young adults struggling with mental illness, violent behavior and other problems. Many, like Palmetto Summerville Behavioral Health, are privately run facilities.

 

 

Photo by Wade Spees

Neighbors of the Palmetto Behavioral Health complex in Summerville have expressed concerns about security at the facility, which is surrounded by a 6-foot-tall wooden fence topped with 18 inches of lattice.

 

Neighbors of the Palmetto Behavioral Health complex in Summerville have expressed concerns about security at the facility, which is surrounded by a 6-foot-tall wooden fence topped with 18 inches of lattice.

 

 

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control licenses these centers but has virtually no say in where they are located or who they accept as clients, agency spokesman Thom Berry said.

 

DHEC inspectors typically visit these facilities just once every two years unless a complaint is lodged, Berry said. Even then, they are looking at things such as staffing ratios, the dispensing of medication and treatment plans. They don't control admissions or security measures. These facilities are not required to report escapes; only hospitalizations and deaths, he said.

 

That doesn't sit well with some town officials following last week's escape of four violence-prone Washington, D.C., teens from Palmetto's 60-bed treatment center on Midland Parkway. One escapee who remains at large had reportedly been charged with attempted murder.

 

"I'm very concerned," Town Councilman Walter Bailey said. "We have plenty of home-grown thugs in South Carolina without importing them from other states."

 

Councilman Bob Jackson said he wants town officials to discuss ways to improve security and notification measures at the center. He said a number of residents have spoken to him with concerns about security at the facility, which is surrounded by a 6-foot-tall wooden fence topped with a lattice.

 

"The gates there I could have climbed when I was 9 years old. When I was a teenager, those gates would have just been fun," Jackson said. "They don't look like they are designed to keep someone in. And my belief is, this was not an isolated case."

 

 

Since February 2006, Summerville police have been called to the facility 128 times. In that time, there have been 12 missing-person calls and seven reports of runaways, police Capt. Michael Donoghue said.

 

In October 2009, a 15-year-old from the facility was accused of savagely beating a 64-year-old woman after slipping out a side door, according to a police report.

 

The victim, Toni Kucish, told police she was climbing from her vehicle when the teen started hitting her, knocking her to the ground. He continued to punch her in the head and shoulders while she was down. He ran off after she screamed for help but was quickly caught by staff members from the center, the police report stated.

 

Staff members told police the teen had run off after asking to get a drink of water. The teen told police he was angry with staff and decided to take it out on the first person he saw, a police report stated.

 

Geoffrey H. Waggoner, Kucish's attorney, said his client suffered a hemorrhage six months later that caused bleeding on the brain while she was talking to someone about the incident.

 

"Not only did the institution fail to acknowledge the attack on Ms. Kucish nearly two years ago, from recent events, it appears that meaningful improvements in security are still lacking," he said.

 

 

Stacey Lindbergh, Palmetto's director of business development and community relations, declined to comment on the episode or anything related to last week's escape, citing patient confidentiality restrictions. The center released a statement last week saying it is "committed to providing the best possible treatment to its patients and takes their safety and well- being very seriously."

 

The Summerville facility is one of three operated in South Carolina by Palmetto Behavioral Health System. Palmetto, in turn, is owned by Universal Health Services, a Fortune 500 health management company with some 200 facilities throughout the country. The parent company reported net revenues of $5.6 billion in 2010.

 

The Summerville facility is not the only Palmetto Behavioral Health center to have problems. In February 2004, a 21-year-old accused of robbery escaped twice in two weeks from Palmetto's North Charleston treatment center, allegedly kidnapping his children's mother during his time on the run. Two years earlier, a 16-year-old boy was accused of sexually molesting two other boys –ages 12 and 14 — at the same facility.

 

 

 

4 escapees only had to scale fence, published 04/23/11

 

It remains unclear just how many out-of-state offenders are housed at the Palmetto facilities or how long the practice has been going on.

 

 

Steve Rublee, director of the Medical University Institute of Psychiatry, said it is not uncommon for treatment centers like Palmetto to accept clients from other states that may not have facilities to accommodate all of the youths under their jurisdiction. He ran a child and adolescent residential facility for seven years.

 

Rublee said the centers provide an important care option for youths dealing with long-term problems. "I think there is very much a need for this long-term care option that residential treatment centers provide," he said.

 

That may be, but state Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, still plans to push for restrictions on the age and level of criminal offender allowed at that type of center. He also wants the state to prohibit these facilities from accepting out-of-state clients with criminal backgrounds.

 

"The questions are: Why are we even taking in any of these offenders from outside of South Carolina, why are we putting them behind a fence you can buy at Lowe's and how soon can we end this process?" he said. "This practice needs to change."

 

 

 

 

April 2011:

- by Geoffrey Waggoner

 

In the past couple of months, and besides the daily responsibilities involved in the interview of potential clients, and the investigation of their claims, and the preparation for and attendance at the dozens of depositions which go along with on-going civil litigation, and the myriad of paperwork and telephone and scheduling tasks, we also had a three day trial.

 

Our client was a young woman who we considered to be a victim of "malicious prosecution" by her employer. She had established and was in charge of the meat department at a retail grocery store when, one day, the police arrived and escorted her out of the store because her employer had accused her and a meat supply salesman of stealing from the business.

 

The problem was that before calling the police, her employer never talked to her, or to the salesman.  Had it done so, it would have learned that the transactions which concerned her boss were actually common practices in the food and beverage industry, and that no one was losing any money. Eventually, after the police investigated, the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.

 

Before her arrest, our client had been a star student and athlete at a local highschool and at the College of Charleston.  Her family was well known and, it should go without saying, she had no criminal record and was extremely upset with her arrest and pending prosecution for something she did not do.

 

In the trial, the Defendant employer did not offer any proof that our client had been stealing, but did argue that without knowing much about the grocery store operation, he had a right to be suspicious and call the police for further investigation.  He admitted that no one had thought to ask our client, or the salesman, about what was going on before the police were called. He also admitted that when the salesman did explain things, after our client had been arrested, the matter was dropped and the salesman was never arrested.

 

After three days of trial, and at the urging of the trial judge, the case was settled – a result which both sides had hoped for but which sometimes only comes when all the evidence is presented to a jury.

 

January 2011:  

- by Geoffrey Waggoner

 

Everyone appreciates, to some extent, the benefits of Face Book, My Space, Linked In and similar social or business networking sites. The ability to find and reconnect with friends and colleagues with whom one might otherwise have little contact, has been a joy for most of us.

 

But in the business world, and especially in the world of litigation, there are serious problems that can arise with the carefree manner in which individuals broadcast information about themselves and their lives.

 

Just two months ago, I took a deposition of a young woman who had caused my client serious injury in a motor vehicle collision. On the face of it, there was little to explain how this woman had plowed into the rear end of my client's car at a speed estimated by the police to be at least 50 miles per hour. The weather was clear. The road was straight. There were no equipment problems. But it was 6:30 AM and so I asked her, under oath, and in front of court reporter, whether she had been drinking the evening before.

 

If she had simply said "no" and nothing more, that would have been the end of it. There would certainly be no easy way to prove that she had. But, instead, she volunteered, "I don't drink." I asked "You never drink alcohol?" And she replied emphatically, "Never!"

 

When we searched for and found the woman's Face Book page, we saw photos and text which showed that she lied under oath. When we printed and enlarged one of those pages and sent it to her defense lawyers, her insurance company was persuaded to up its previous offer by 50%. Her Face Book page cost her $80,000. No one, not even the most conservative juror, likes someone who lies under oath.

 

The point of all of this, especially for our clients, is that the joys of social networking on the internet should never mask the dangers of public exposure, whether to family, or employers or those of us in the litigation business.

 

 

 

 March 2008:

BY NADINE PARKS

The Post and Courier

 

Tommy Mack will never have the opportunity to hurt another woman, that's what the jury verdict Thursday tried to guarantee.

 

Mack, 46, a repeat offender, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the case of kidnapping victim Beth Ferguson. The 41-year-old Goose Creek resident was viciously attacked April 10, 2007, when she stopped at Carolina Florist on Ashley Phosphate Road to buy her son a corsage for his prom.

 

Mack was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery and assault and battery with intent to kill. His violent criminal history of attacking, kidnapping and raping women caused Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson to file a life without parole notice before the trial this week, Wilson said. The notice made the sentence mandatory.

 

Mack previously was convicted of kidnapping a woman from North Charleston in 1994 and raping her. He also was convicted of attacking women in 1979 and 1984.

 

"There's no rehabilitation for him," Wilson said. "He will die in prison."

 

Witnesses testified that Mack worked at the flower shop and lived on the second floor. Carolina Florist owner Deborah Mack told The Post and Courier on Thursday that Tommy Mack is her ex-husband and that they were co-owners of the business last April.

 

Ferguson identified Tommy Mack as her assailant, and testimony showed that he was at the shop by himself shortly before Ferguson arrived. His fingerprints were on a cold bottle of beer, just feet from where Ferguson was bound, gagged and locked in a closet on the second floor, police testified. Ferguson freed herself while Tommy Mack was gone and broke through a front window of the shop to freedom. She was badly beaten, and her shirt was cut from her body.

 

After the trial, Ferguson said she feels a sense of closure. She spent months in counseling after the ordeal. "It has changed my whole life and how I do things," she said.

 

Ferguson took weapons classes and armed herself with a gun. She said she tries never to be alone, especially when she goes shopping.

 

Forgiveness? She said she has tried to give that many times and quickly taken it back. Spiritual healing is still a process, she said.

 

Ferguson has filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the Macks.

 

 

 

 

April 2005:

 

BY JONATHAN MAZE

Of The Post and Courier Staff

Since doctors finally started allowing them into delivery rooms a couple of decades ago, dads have been videotaping the births of their children, recording their first few moments in the world.

 

Not anymore.

 

Hospitals here and across the country are ending the practice of videotaping births. New dads at Roper Hospital in downtown Charleston and at Bon Secours St. Francis in West Ashley have been told they must shut off their cameras during their child's birth.

 

The nonprofit company that owns the hospitals says its policy, which also includes still cameras, was changed because of safety concerns after one particularly adamant cameraperson refused to get out of the way of hospital staff when a delivery last year got serious.

 

"We realized we need to focus on the mom and the baby," said Linda Schofield, clinical director for women's, infants' and children's services at Roper St. Francis.

 

In many instances, doctors and hospitals that tell parents to shut their cameras off are more worried about something else: lawsuits. They fear that these videos could wind up as evidence in a courtroom during a malpractice case."What once used to be really fun and warm and cozy and so forth now is a potential nail in the coffin from a liability perspective," said Dr. John Nelson, an obstetrician from Salt Lake City and president of the American Medical Association. He stopped allowing his patients to videotape births a few years ago.

 

That hospitals are ending videotaping doesn't come as a surprise to Geoff Waggoner. A malpractice attorney in North Charleston, Waggoner used a video taken by a father of a baby who was cut by doctors handling a pair of scissors during birth to win a settlement in a lawsuit two years ago. The video contradicted the doctor's testimony.

 

The hospital? Roper.

 

"It showed a delivery where the child was cut by the obstetrician's scissors," Waggoner said. "You could see it. A picture is worth a thousand words."

 

Waggoner said that videos can also help doctors back up their case. "It could just as easily validate a physician's methods and prove there was no negligence," he said. "There are occasions where a video would thwart the plaintiffs."

 

Roper St. Francis officials decided last July to ban cameras and videotapes during births, and they deny that malpractice concerns played any role in their new policy.

 

The American Hospital Association doesn't track how many hospitals have banned videos in birthing rooms, but a spokesman for the industry group said that the decision usually is between the doctor and the patient.

 

Most hospitals in the Charleston area follow that policy. The Medical University of South Carolina requires physician consent before cameras are allowed in the birthing room.

 

At Trident Health System, which runs hospitals in North Charleston, Summerville and Walterboro, the decision is left up to the patient and the doctor. But the company prefers videos not be taken, out of concern that the equipment may get in the way of workers in emergency cases, said Nicole DeMarco, a hospital spokeswoman.

 

Video cameras are allowed at East Cooper Regional Medical Center in Mount Pleasant, but the doctor makes the final decision, said hospital spokeswoman Pam Tucker.

 

That's where Karen Searson has had her three children, including one born last Thursday. All three births are recorded on video, with her 17-year-old stepdaughter serving as camerawoman for the last two.

 

"It's something I hope to share with my children," said Searson, 32, from Ravenel.

 

"They can actually see themselves, how it all started and how it all ended."

 

Searson, who is a nurse at Roper, understands hospitals' and doctors' concerns that videos may be used against them in a lawsuit.

 

But she also worries that these new restrictions may burst many parents' balloons on what is supposed to be a great day.

 

"It's just such a beautiful experience," Searson said. "When you take that away, when you put restraints on it, it takes a lot of the fun away."

 

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

 

http://archives.postandcourier.com/archive/arch05/0405/arc04122263113.shtml

 

 

 

April 2005:

 

BY SCHUYLER KROPF

Of The Post and Courier Staff

 

When Russia-born Luba Lynch and her mother, Tatiana Kotova, visited the Babies "R" Us superstore in North Charleston, they shopped the Russian way.

 

They put four packages of baby cookies in their own tote bag, a common Old World practice because stores in the former Soviet Union never had shopping bags.

 

That wasn't good enough for suspicious store workers. They pursued charges of shoplifting against the women and had them arrested, even though they had removed the cookies and paid for them at the checkout counter.

 

After a three-day trial this week, that decision cost Babies "R" Us $1.2 million. In what probably is the largest verdict this year in Charleston County, a jury late Thursday sided with Lynch in saying she and her mother were wrongfully detained for 10 hours for a crime that never was committed.

 

Juror David Impson said he hopes the verdict sends a message that the company needs to educate its employees on what shoplifting is.

 

"Once they saw the receipts, it should have been over," Impson said. "For what they went through, Toys 'R' Us needs to have a wake-up call." Toys "R" Us, headquartered in Wayne, N.J., is the parent company of Babies "R" Us.The case started in February 2003 when Lynch, who met her American husband in the Peace Corps and came to the United States in 1998, took her mother to the store on Rivers Avenue to show her a slice of American retail.

 

Inside, Lynch gave the tote bag to her 55-year-old mother and went to the bathroom. The cookies went into the bag. When she came back, her mother, who did not speak English, was standing with a manager, who gave them a shopping basket to use, according to the complaint.

 

After paying for all their items, which included four packages of cookies and three beach toys, the women walked out of the store and into the arms of two uniformed North Charleston police officers, who arrested the women on the store manager's wishes.

 

The women were handcuffed and taken in a marked patrol car to the North Charleston Jail, where they stayed for 10 hours. After a bond hearing, they were released on their own recognizance. North Charleston officials declined to prosecute.

 

Lynch's attorney, Geoff Waggoner, said the incident was especially traumatic for Lynch's mother because it was her first involvement with U.S. police, and she wasn't certain of her rights or what police could do to her.

 

The mother "didn't know what to expect," he said. "Rather than say it was a misunderstanding, they (store workers) stood by and let the police believe shoplifting had taken place."

 

During the trial in front of Circuit Judge Markley Dennis, jurors were told of the arrest. Impson called the store's conduct "outrageous."

 

"She wasn't concealing them in my eyes," he said. "It was custom in Russia. They don't give you bags; you take your own bags into the store."

 

The jurors found the company at fault in four areas: false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, slander and outrageous conduct. They assessed actual damages of $50,000 on each of the four counts and punitive damages of $250,000 on each of the four counts.

 

A representative from the Columbia law firm that handled the company's defense did not respond to a telephone message Friday seeking comment. Lynch, who lives in Mount Pleasant, also declined to be interviewed.

 

Waggoner said the store went overboard for a few boxes of "99-cent biscuits."

 

The company had a right to investigate what the mother and daughter were doing by carrying items in the tote, he said, but not to then arrest them 20 minutes later.

 

 

 

October 1997:

BY RICHARD GREEN Jr.

The Post and Courier

 

Kmart must pay $600,000 in actual damages to a woman who was kidnapped in broad daylight from the parking lot in front of its former Rivers Avenue store and raped.

 

A jury in Charleston County Court of Common Pleas ruled Thursday that the store was negligent for not having a uniformed security guard outside like other stores in that high-crime area of North Charleston, said the woman's lawyer, Geoffrey Waggoner.

 

"The decision is troubling," said Gregg Meyers, one of Kmart's lawyers. He said his client hasn't decided whether to appeal.

 

Meyers said customers had only three problems in three years in the store's parking lot. Though other area stores do have guards, there have been robberies and assaults anyway, Meyers said.

 

The woman, now 38, was finishing a cigarette while she sat in her van in front of Kmart just after noon on Sept. 30, 1994, when she noticed a man walk by with white socks on his hands, Waggoner said.

 

After shopping, the woman came out of the store and was confronted by the same man at the door of her van, Waggoner said. The man pulled a foot-long knife and forced her into the van. She was taken to Columbia and raped twice.

 

The man, Lamar Thomas Mack, said the woman agreed to have sex with him, Waggoner said, but he pleaded guilty to the attack and is serving a nine-year prison sentence.

 

At the time the of the attack, Mack was on parole for assaulting a woman in a store parking lot in Dorchester County in 1984, Waggoner said. Mack also had a record for the armed robbery and attempted kidnapping of another woman in Charleston County in 1979.

 

 

 

 

 October 1997:

BY RICHARD GREEN Jr.

The Post and Courier

 

A North Charleston bar must pay $1,525,000 to a woman who was severely injured by a driver who got drunk at the bar, a Charleston County jury decided Thursday.

 

The bar, Willies on Dorchester Road, denied that Samuel Chris Gordon was ever in the bar the night he swerved and hit another car head on, said Sam Hines, a lawyer representing Willies and El- myer Enterprises Inc.

 

Gordon, 29, is serving an eight-year sentence for felony driving under the influence for the April 2, 1994, accident.

 

Catherine Hitchcock, 26, a passenger in the car Gordon hit, was in a coma for two months after the accident. She suffered brain damage and now has an IQ of about 70.

 

Hitchcock, represented by lawyers Geoffrey Waggoner and Richard Rosen, alleged that Gordon drank a half dozen shots of 107-proof liquor and a dozen beers at Willies before driving off down Dorchester Road and turning onto Ashley Phosphate Road.

 

Hitchcock's boyfriend, Lonnie East, had picked her up from work at Northwoods Mall and was driving the other way on Ashley Phosphate. Witnesses said Gordon was speeding and swerving, then crossed four lanes and ran head-on into the car carrying East and Hitchcock.

 

After a three-day trial in Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, a jury awarded Hitchcock $1.5 million in actual damages and $25,000 punitive damages from Willies and Elmyer Enterprises. Gordon was ordered to pay $3,000 in punitive damages.

 

Hines said Willies and Elmyer Enterprises haven't decided if they will appeal.