Ben Kinney, JD
In 2015, Caitlyn Jenner caused a fatal car accident and now she settled for $800,000. She killed someone so why isn’t she going to jail?
Back in 2015, after a thorough investigation spanning nearly six months, the L.A. District Attorney (DA) made the decision not to charge Jenner with vehicular manslaughter or any other crime. The DA’s 161 page report stated that, “based on the facts, [the State] cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that suspect’s conduct was unreasonable” – a required element of negligence based crimes. If anything, Jenner might be charged with a speeding violation.
Immediately following the decision by the DA, a slew of lawsuits were filed against Jenner on behalf of the deceased victim and others who were involved in the crash. Unlike the potential case by the DA, these lawsuits were civil, not criminal. That means that the lawsuits are brought by private citizens instead of the State, but it also translates to two very important differences that led to the settlements in the news.
The first difference is that a penalty of jail or prison time is not available in civil cases. Civil cases are more about compensating a plaintiff for his or her loss and less about punishing a wrongdoer.
The second difference is that the burden of proof (what the plaintiff has to prove in order to prevail) is much lower in a civil case. In a civil case a plaintiff just has to prove his or her case by a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning that the plaintiff’s allegations are simply more likely than not. This burden is much easier to overcome than the burden in a criminal case, which is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
When the District Attorney decided not to bring charges against Jenner because he did not believe that he could meet his burden in court, any chance of jail time was extinguished. Whether the plaintiffs in the civil cases could have actually met their burden in court will never be known because of the settlement, however, the fact that there was such a high settlement probably means that Jenner thought there was at least a decent chance that the plaintiffs would ultimately prevail.
The lower civil burden of proof is something that all businesses should keep in mind when analyzing any potential lawsuit. An experienced lawyer can help you with assessing the risk associated with a lawsuit and help you determine whether you should swing for that outside pitch or perhaps settle that dubious allegation.
