Well, the rapist has been convicted. The question now is not whether the rapist was guilty (criminal case), but who, if anyone, is going to pay damages for what happened (civil case). One can be pretty sure that an itinerant carpenter doesn't have a lot of money, so he is out of the running in the "pay a lot of money" race.
The question is not "is the rapist liable" but "given that the rapist is culpable, is anyone else also liable?" The victim claims that the hotel was negligent. An absolute defense according to the common law is that the victim was contributorily negligent (had any bit of negligence, even if her negligence was tiny compared to the hotel's negligence.) This defense has been modified in various jurisdictions in the US, not sure what it is where that case is, but some version of it is obviously at work.
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Date: 2009-08-15 02:27 pm (UTC)The question is not "is the rapist liable" but "given that the rapist is culpable, is anyone else also liable?" The victim claims that the hotel was negligent. An absolute defense according to the common law is that the victim was contributorily negligent (had any bit of negligence, even if her negligence was tiny compared to the hotel's negligence.) This defense has been modified in various jurisdictions in the US, not sure what it is where that case is, but some version of it is obviously at work.