Recently, a 20-year-old apartment maintenance worker confessed to killing a child who resided at the same Canton, Georgia complex.
Now, the child’s mother has filed a lawsuit against the apartment managers, claiming they did not do all they could have to prevent the crime.
According to a news report, the allegations center around whether the landlord performed a proper criminal background check. The case highlights the need to obtain screening reports not just on tenants, but on employees as well.
The managers maintain that they always perform a criminal background check on every resident and every employee, a policy which will greatly aid their defense because this landlord likely will need to prove that they met the standard of the industry as it applies to obtaining criminal background checks.
The mother also is claiming that the landlord should have intervened after other tenants complained that the employee appeared to be watching children on the playground.
Early into the investigation, officials said that the man did not appear to have a prior criminal record. After consenting to an interview, the man admitted that he had molested other children in the past, although there was no indication that he was ever implicated in those cases. The man committed suicide while in prison, shortly after providing the interview.
This post is provided by Tenant Verification Service, Inc., helping landlords reduce the risks of renting with fraud prevention tools that include Tenant Screening, Tenant Background Checks, (U.S. and Canada), as well as Criminal Background Checks, and Eviction Reports (U.S. only).
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this post in not intended to be construed as legal advice, nor should it be considered a substitute for obtaining individual legal counsel or consulting your local, state, federal or provincial tenancy laws.
