St. Charles County Jury Awards $247.3 Million to Six Women Sexually Assaulted at Oasis Foot Spa
After trial: Affirmed in full by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, on October 8, 2024. The award covers six plaintiffs.
Won by Cofman Townsley Attorneys at Law.
A St. Charles County jury awarded $247.3 million to six women sexually assaulted by an unlicensed massage therapist at Oasis Foot Spa & Massage in St. Peters, finding the spa and its owner liable for hiring him without any background check and ignoring an early complaint. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in full in 2024.
What happened
On June 30, 2023, a St. Charles County jury returned a $247.3 million verdict against Oasis Foot Spa & Massage LLC and its owner, Zhengzhao Lu, in favor of six women who were sexually assaulted by one of the spa's massage therapists. The award included $95.3 million in compensatory damages and $152 million in punitive damages, with individual recoveries ranging from $35.2 million to $47 million. The plaintiffs are identified in court records only by their initials.
The spa operated on Mid Rivers Mall Drive in St. Peters. In February 2019 it brought on Xing Wu Zhang, then 61, as a massage therapist. Zhang held no Missouri massage therapy license. According to the Missouri Court of Appeals opinion in the case, the spa's manager, Angela Zuo, who is Lu's wife, hired him based on his claimed experience at a nearby spa without contacting that employer or running any background check. Trial evidence showed Zhang had been accused of sexually assaulting a patron at a different foot spa shortly before Oasis hired him.
Warnings came early. In April 2019, an online complaint alleged that Zhang had inappropriately touched a client. Management did not investigate. Over the months that followed, Zhang assaulted clients during massage sessions using a consistent method that the appellate court later described in its opinion. Six of the women sued Oasis and Lu in October 2020, alleging negligent hiring, negligent retention, and negligent supervision.
Todd Nissenholtz of Cofman Townsley in St. Louis tried the case for the plaintiffs before Judge Michael Fagras. The trial record contained one more act of misconduct: in 2021, with the lawsuit already pending, Zuo destroyed all of the spa's business records, including client information she was required by regulation to keep for three years. The court gave the jury a spoliation instruction, telling jurors that those records would have contained evidence unfavorable to the defendants' claim that they had no notice of Zhang's conduct while he worked at Oasis.
Before trial, the plaintiffs' final demand was $4 million. The defense's last offer was $1 million. The jury deliberated about seven hours before finding for all six women on both compensatory and punitive damages.
Zhang was separately charged with second degree sodomy in St. Charles County. Missouri Lawyers Media reported that he forfeited a $50,000 cash bond in the fall of 2021 and remained at large, and that evidence at trial indicated he had lived with the spa's owner. The same report noted that Travelers insured Oasis. Neither the verdict reporting nor the appellate opinion discusses how much of the judgment has been or can be collected.
Oasis and Lu appealed, challenging the punitive damages award, the expert testimony, and the jury instructions. On October 8, 2024, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District affirmed the judgment in full.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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