Jury Says Nordstrom Must Pay $1.6M for Failing to Protect 2 Shoppers from Female Stabber
Arguing that personnel at a Nordstrom in Bethesda, Md., didn’t do enough to protect shoppers from a deranged woman armed with knives in the eight minutes she was in the store, lawyers for two women stabbed multiple times one day in 2005 have persuaded a Montgomery County jury to award a total of almost $1.6 million.
The assailant, Antoinette Starks, 54, was declared not criminally responsible for the incident and has been doing well under inpatient treatment for her paranoid schizophrenia, reports the Washington Post.
Attorney Kenneth Trombly represented one of the two women who won the award Friday. He said the store didn’t follow its own emergency procedures and should have acted more quickly to evacuate the store and alert customers, the Associated Press reports.
