Another Match.com Date Gone Very, Very Wrong

A lawsuit has been filed against Match.com by a woman who was beaten within an edge of her life.  She alleges that the dating website did not properly advise her of the risks of online dating.  Apparently this man did not have any criminal convictions, so even if Match.com did have criminal background checks in place, this would not have prevented this tragic event. 

When I appeared on the TODAY show with Jennifer about her Match.com experience, a lawyer from Illinois called me regarding the lawsuit he intended to file against Match.com.  This may or may not be that one, but there will likely be more of these if customers continue to get physically and sexually assaulted on dates.  In our case, we determined that Match.com could not be held accountable for the actions of Jennifer's perpetrator.  However, if Match.com continues to not conduct criminal background checks, and one of its customers is unnecessarily injured or killed, Match.com will have signficant exposure to large-damages lawsuits.  I wonder what the additional cost would be to Match.com if they were to institute a policy of criminal background checks on its members?  Could participants opt out, and if they did, would that be made clear to other participants? 


And here is a link to the CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/us/2013/01/25/nr-hostin-match-com-lawsuit.cnn

Here is a link to our website about representing victims of sexual assault:  http://www.brotherslaw.com/Practice-Areas/Sexual-Child-Abuse-Victims.shtml