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By my standards, anyone who is a ‘chronic runaway’ is probably already damaged.

Bob

I always thought, when it came to inappropriate sexual conduct with an underage person, that there was absolutely NO defense. Even if she produces very legitimate looking documentation, etc. (IMHO, I think laws that enable this theory are wrong, but that’s the way I always understood them as. At the very least, the person producing the false documentation should be liable for equal penalties….this way she’d think long and hard about pressing charges….)

The bar/nightclub should start by calling Child Protective Services on the parents, just to start giving them a little hell of their own….

Ever hear the phrase “In like Flynn”? That comes from actor Errol Flynn’s successful defense of a statuary rape charge by proving in court that the girl had represented herself as an adult with the help of several of her companions.

Robert: I think that’s only for statutory rape, not the entire spectrum of sex offenses.

But, she gave an ID that said she was 27…the club is going to have a hard time claiming they really believed her age.

> the club is going to have a hard time claiming they really believed her age.

Depends on how she’s costumed for court vs how she was costumed on the stage.

MB>statuary rape

Ouch. S.B. “Statutory rape.”

More on the phrase “In like Flynn”:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-inl1.htm

i believe under some state laws, it is strict liability for porn. for instance if memory serves it was tracy lords who worked underage on hundreds of videos. Now, the criminal charges were kicked on a theory that the director was not at fault, in a weird kind of standard where they pretend there is no defense, but say, “look, he carded her and she looked 18 so he is innocent.” yeah, i don’t get that, but oh well. but reportedly on the civil side basically all the relevant tapes were found and destroyed to the extent that was possible.

On the other hand, even in statory rape, courts have been reluctant to allow for causes of action.

Btw, all that about lords is from vague law school memory, so if i am wrong, sorry.

As for the instant action, i am actually lukewarm in support. obviously the parents bear some blame, but if the age to be on that stage isn’t 16, yeah, they should have taken appropriate steps to ensure that she was of the legal age. i want them to be so scared of liability that they start thinking, “i better not hire someone who looks 18. i better hire people who look 25.”

I mean if she couldn’t turn to stripping, what would she do instead? some cruddy minimum wage job, i suppose, which would make it hard to make ends meet, so maybe in that circumstnaces she would come home. so in a real way this club was funding her runaway status.

now, that all assumes the club was negligent in hiring her. maybe this is an uncommonly old looking 16 year old and maybe her fake ID was really good. but right now, none of this is failing the smell test with me.

Robert – It is state law dependent. In Ohio at least, it is not strict liability.

The big problem with such a suit is that the girl will likely be 18 at the time of trial, and the mother will no longer control the legal issues.

So if the kid isn’t interested in the suit — and as a chronic runaway working at a strip club that is probably a fair assumption — there is a good chance it will be dead in the water when she turns 18.