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AOL Monitor Accused of Luring 15-Year-Old for Sex
Amy's Robot writes "According to the AP, an Internet chat room monitor hired by AOL to keep children safe from sexual predators seduced a California girl online and was about to meet her for sex when he was found out by a co-worker, a lawsuit charges. The incident happened 2 years ago, but has become public this week because the lawsuit was just filed by the girl, now 19. She accuses AOL of failing to supervise the employee and of falsely advertising that its online service was safe for children. Who's watching the watchers?"
It started when she was 15, they were going to meet when she turned 17, that was 2 years ago, now she's 19. So that clears that up.
According to the story, they met online when she was 15, and he was in his early 20s. Two years later, when she was 17, they arranged to meet for sex. As far as I know, the age of consent is 16, meaning that a 17 year old can legally agree to have sex with an older person. I don't see how the monitor committed a crime, unless he propositioned her before she turned 16, and that might be difficult to prove in court.
As for AOL being liable, that's a stretch too. They probably disclaim all liability in their terms of use, and unless she can prove some fraud or negligence on the part of the employee, I don't see how they can be held liable.
This whole story smacks of a frivolous lawsuit by somebody who just realised that she might be able to embarass a big company into settling rather than face publicity.
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The general rule is that the employer is liable for the actions of its employees, and even for intentional torts of its employees when said employee is acting within the scope of his employement.
In this case, if the AOL employee was, say, a tech support person or something cruising the chatrooms during his breaks or after hours, then it is unlikely that AOL would be on the hook for his intentional conduct. However, this guy's JOB was to cruise chatrooms -- is more likely that a court would find that his behavior, even though intentional, illegal and not within company policies, to be behavior "within the scope of his emplyment" and therefore AOL will likely be on the hook. So will the guy -- but AOL will end up paying up, and will have to go after the guy for reimbursement, if he has anything.
This is standard agency stuff -- employers carry a lot of responsibility for the actions of their employees. As another poster noted, the reason for this policy is to keep a company from intentionally hiring pervs to cruise chatrooms, or hiring drunks to lead AA meetingds, or whatever -- if you are hiring someone, you have to make sure that they are not a bad seed for the job, and you have to keep your eye on them to make sure they don't change...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
More importantly, she never met him at all, and it didn't come to almost meeting him till she was 17. The slashdot headline and even summary is, as usual, bullshit.