Jamie Leigh Jones Loses Her Lawsuit Against KBR

Nearly 2 years ago I told you about the then 4 year long struggle of Jamie Leigh Jones (pic), a former KBR employee who alleged that she was gang-raped and ultimately held captive in a shipping container while serving KBR in Iraq.  

The point of my post then was to argue that Jones was entitled to be heard on the merits of her claim.  A Texas federal jury has heard Ms. Jones' claim and rejected it.  Prior to receiving the case, the federal trial judge removed various claims from consideration by the jury due to a lack of evidence including some of the more spectacular allegations made by Ms. Jones. 

As you might expect the "tort reform" blawgers were already crowing in advance of this verdict based on reports from the trial raising doubts about the direction of the plaintiff's case including a fairly pessimistic progress report from Stephanie Mencier at Mother Jones.  But don't kid yourself or let yourself be oversold on the lessons to be drawn from the tort "reformer" commentary--KBR and Corporate defendants don't want plaintiffs, right or wrong, to be heard on the merits in the courts.  That is the agenda of this commentary and gloating.  In fact, the ever-brilliant (but fallible) Ted Frank is demanding that Senator Al Franken apologize.  For what?  Apparently, Franken deserves condemnation because Franken advocated the position that citizens should not be required to submit their claims to arbitration and instead should have access to the courts.  That Ms. Jones lost should demonstrate to the federalist society polemicists, et al. that they are overselling the snake oil of tort reform.  Not surprisingly to me, American juries appropriately mete out justice when given the opportunity, as they apparently did in the case of Jamie Leigh Jones. 

Do not draw the wrong lesson from the right verdict.