You do understand the basics of this right? As a CHILD he was sexually assaulted by an authority figure AT THE SCHOOL. The school district will only have to pay $3 million, the rest to be paid by their insurance policy. Only $6.9 million will actually be paid in total. I'd be more outraged that the jury actually decided a 5th grader was 30% at fault! How can a child have any fault in being sexually assaulted?!? It is obvious you read only the headline and posted your own ideas on jury awards w/o benefit of reading the article, or knowledge of how such an award would be paid. In most cases, large awards are never recovered, because either the defendant doesn't have the money or the insurance coverage. He may have been awarded $23 million, but he isn't going to collect that much. Had he just sued the teacher, he likely would be unable to collect a dime. Headlines showing huge jury awards may generate a lot of traffic, but recovering that much is almost impossible. Just ask Fred Goldman, who has been trying for decades to get money from OJ. Plus most, if not every, State has limits on how long you can attempt to collect. Most are 20 years. After that, unless you can prove the defendant was hiding money, you can't collect anything. No wonder our society is in such bad shape when people have no idea what the laws are, and how the court system operates.

The amounts of these awards are based purely on emotion, not any kind of logic. In reality, most of these high dollar awards end up being quietly reduced later. There are appeals filed and the plaintiffs are left with a decision of accepting a lower amount or facing potentially years of protracted litigation in appeals. The plaintiff's own attorneys frequently pressure the plaintiffs to accept a lower amount to get thing settled to avoid having to pour many more hours into the case and knowing the award will likely get knocked down anyway. The attorneys know that the odds are against them with these high dollar awards once they get to the appeals level where they are dealing with reasoning judges, not emotional juries. The appeals court judges knock down these absurd award amounts to reasonable levels, or the parties settle on a lower number, but the public rarely ever hears about it.

@CelticPagan - The 30% fault was leveled against the LA schools, not the kid. It is clearly a typo in the article based on reading the entire thing. Please use some common sense and understand the quality of the reporting/editing on this site is not what it should be.

@CelticPagan- 30% fault was on the teacher, NOT the abused student!

Actually it says 30% is the school's fault and the rest is on the teacher. That's why he'll probably only collect $6.9 million that the school is paying and none of what the teacher owes.

Ray,

Money is "past tense". In other words, "too late". The abuse already happened. (like you didn't know this LOL)

Stricter laws will only teach the pedophiles to go farther out of their way to not get caught although, I do agree with you.

OMGosh I can't believe that they found an elementary school kid "30% responsible for his abuse"! That's insane, he was a child!!!

Does anyone really think the school system pays for this?

Letusreason, have to agree. The schools get money from taxes from the people who live in that state. Maybe they will take money out of the lottery. That money that people pay to play is supposed to go to education.

Robert, a messily $3 million will be paid by the school district. Another $3.9 million will be paid by their insurance policy. That's it. $3 million from a school district the size of LA's is a drop in the bucket, and as you point out, much will come from the lottery, not tax-payers. So a person while in Fifth Grade who was sexually assaulted by his teacher on school property is going to get all of $6.9 million for having to endure that at the age of ELEVEN. Yeah, he's getting way too much for having his innocence raped, literally, from him. Where's the compassion for the victim? Where were the other school officials while these 10-15 assaults took place? This was in an Elementary School, not a huge HS. No one could hear or see? My Elementary school, which I started in 40 years ago, still has huge nearly floor to ceiling windows that look into a court shared by at least 2 other classrooms and the main hall. No teacher could have done this without someone seeing, and while thick, the doors are not soundproof. Unless the elementary school where this teen attended was built more like a jail than a school, someone should have seen and/or heard what was going on and checked. Sounds more like it was like Penn State, where an assault was witnessed, but nothing done beyond telling a higher up. Most States, including CA require teachers to report any suspicion of abuse, be it at home or elsewhere, including the school. These attacks didn't take place in a vacuum, but an active school. If the school district wants to avoid such awards in the future, then they should screen their teachers better and train them to spot and report such abuse immediately and the schools must call the police as soon as it is suspected. The fact that this case took from 2009 till now to be finalized with an award means the school district fought it, and you only fight if you are trying to hide something. They could have settled any time, and for a lot less, especially if they truly had the child's best interest at heart.

What I find outrageous is that the jury actually found an 11 year old 30% accountable for being raped! No one, no matter the age, much less a child, is ever at fault for being raped. Maybe the LA DA should look into this jury to see why they don't believe this common sense thing? Do they have sympathy with the rapist? That is disgusting, but they said as much in open court by finding an 11 YO was 30% at fault. Sickening!

!

Celtic-so a child molested in a wealthy school district should get $23m or more. What about the child that gets molested in a poor rural school district on receieves $23k?? Same crime. Oh and reread the story with regards to the 30% so you stop making a fool of yourself...

While there may be an error in the story, read what it says carefully. It DOES say: "copied and pasted direct from the story): "The jury on Tuesday apportioned 30 percent of the fault, or about $6.9 million, to the former Los Angeles Unified School District student. [emphasis mine} The remaining fault was apportioned to Stobbe, but he had been dismissed as a defendant in the case, according to the plantiff's attorney, Stephen Estey."

I have NO idea, if that part of the story is true, how you ascribe 30 percent of fault in a case like this to a 10-11 year old child.

All that said, the 23 million figure doesn't mean much except a headline.

I reread that 3 times just to make sure I wasn't missing something. Now that I know it says that, I am sure I am missing something! A 10 year old is 30% responsible?!?!

I think the word student is a mistake... it has to be.

The district is paying the 30% so I have to believe the word student shouldn't have been in there.

RR I'd bet just about anything that you'd be the first guy running to get money if you were raped and abused as a child...so stop acting holier than thou.... people like you... who have NO idea what these kids went through...disgust me.

It does seem like an outrageous amount of money, but as others have pointed out, he'll likely only receive a fraction of that.

More importantly, though - the dollar amount should be enough to be an incentive for changes to be made. It sucks that the taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for this - but doesn't that give them reason to demand changes to prevent this from happening again?

I am not familiar with this case, so this is my own opinion, for what it is worth....

Sadly, in this world, children have been abused and are being abused. It is a sick reality.

Sadly, children sometimes lie about these events. I know of two cases personally where a child had "repressed memories" and came forward and accused a family member only to later retract their statements. Unfortunately, the damage had been done to the accused.

Now, I know this doesn't happen very often, but, if the media continues to write articles like this and show on TV large awards of money given to child abuse victims, what is to stop other people from coming forward and "accusing" someone of abusing them only seeking to get a pay out? I know child abuse isn't funny, it is horrific, but what if someone accuses you of something you never did just so a "victim" can get some money? I really think these jury awards should be kept secret, only in the court files.

And, yes, I do believe that legitimate victims need to be compensated for their injuries.

Willie Smith, gay does not mean pedophile, whether married or single. Pedophiles also attack the opposite sex. The AGE of the VICTIMS determines the classification of the predator. Talk about being misinformed!

On another note, to all who would ridicule those commenting on the absurdity of finding the child 30% responsible, the article does state, and I quote, "The jury on Tuesday apportioned 30 percent of the fault, or about $6.9 million, to the former Los Angeles Unified School District student." (Emphasis is mine.) Ridicule the article if you will, (or proof reader), but not the people, who, like me, read and re-read that paragraph, stunned at the notion a child (or adult, for that matter) could be responsible for their own rape. As for excess regarding the award, what price do you put on stolen innocence? What if it was your child? Mute points, as, like previously stated by many others, the jury award will never be paid in full.

Don't worry, general population really, really doesn't like pedos. He'll get enough of what he gave that it'll be justice the way many people want it to be.

your kidding right...."the general population doesn't like pedos"....lol....THE general population are ALL pedos.....!!! He will fit right in and they will teach each other how to not get caught next time.

Sad sad sad

I agree. That has always puzzled me. It should definitely be the other way around, in every state.

So being a pedophile is a liberal thing?

@Dee- Seriously? Now these comments are just borderline wrong. Just pulling these things out of thin air. Extreme paranoia and blaming will only get you so far, before you actually have to base your comment around fact.

Thank you for your application of logic and your fore-knowledge of the pitiful editing at MSNBC. I used to get "outraged" (most overused word on this site) regarding the lack of editing and sometimes incoherent stories published here, and I have the emails and responses to prove it. The sheeple on this site, regardless of thread, get hooked on one aspect of a story, erroneous or not, and then cannot see the forest for the trees.

The pedophile should have "pedophile" tattooed on his forehead before being sent to prison; that would increase the probability of him being shanked and relieving society of its burden and future burden. Pedophiles don't get better, and likely this wasn't his first crime nor will it be his last when he gets out early on "good behavior". If he survives and gets out with his Phd. (Prison Habitation Degree) majoring in enticement and body disposal, he'll be even harder to catch.

The victim is 0% culpable. As Bugs Bunny would say, "what a bunch of maroons".