WE Fest Jury Awards $750,000 After Security Worker With Prior Sex Conviction Assaulted Camper

WE Fest, held each August on the campgrounds along Lake Sallie near Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, draws tens of thousands of country music fans to Becker County for a long weekend. In 2006, Festivals and Concert Events (FACE), Inc., the festival organizer, contracted Security Specialists, Inc. (SSI) to staff the event, including campground check-in positions.

One of those positions went to Eric Joseph Fanning, a 43-year-old from St. Cloud. Fanning had a 1994 conviction for first-degree sexual assault committed in Colorado the prior year. Neither FACE nor SSI had screened him for that conviction before placing him in direct, unsupervised contact with campers. On August 5, 2006, Fanning used access he gained as a campground attendant to locate and sexually assault a 22-year-old woman from Stearns County in her trailer on the festival grounds.

Fanning was prosecuted criminally and sentenced to ten years in prison in January 2007. The following December, the victim filed a civil action in Becker County District Court against both FACE and SSI, alleging negligent hiring, negligent supervision, and failure to provide adequate security.

Plaintiff's attorney Konstandinos Nicklow of Meshbesher and Spence, Minneapolis, argued that basic background screening would have disclosed Fanning's prior felony conviction, making the assault foreseeable. Evidence at trial also showed Fanning had been socializing with female campers over the two days before the assault, and that supervisors were aware, or should have been aware, of that conduct.

On November 6, 2008, a Becker County jury returned a verdict of $750,000. The damages included $400,000 for past pain, disability, and emotional distress; $330,000 for future pain, disability, and emotional distress; and $20,000 for anticipated future health expenses. The jury found FACE negligent in both the hiring and supervision of Fanning and found SSI negligent in the performance of its security duties. Each company bore approximately 42.5 percent of the total fault; the jury also assigned comparative fault to the plaintiff, which reduced her net recovery accordingly.

FACE appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which issued its decision in 2010 upholding the negligent-hiring claim and affirming that an event organizer owes a duty of reasonable care when hiring workers placed in direct contact with attendees.

Nicklow told the Park Rapids Enterprise after the verdict that he could not say the jury's verdict was unfair and that the dollar amount fell within the range of reasonable verdicts.