Dallas Jury Finds Charter Liable for Murder of Customer by Its Own Technician

Betty Jo McClain Thomas was 83 years old and lived alone in Irving, Texas, just outside Dallas. On December 18, 2019, Roy Holden Jr., a field technician for Charter Communications' Spectrum cable service, came to her home to perform a service call. He returned the next day, arriving in his company van and wearing his Spectrum uniform, and stabbed her to death. Holden pleaded guilty to murder in 2021 and is serving a life sentence.

Thomas's estate, her surviving children and her grandson sued Charter Communications in County Court at Law No. 5 in Dallas County, in a case docketed as Goff v. Charter Communications, cause number CC-20-01579-E. They argued the company had failed to properly screen Holden before sending him alone into customers' homes and had ignored red flags in his background and work history. The family also accused Charter of a second wrong committed after Thomas was already dead: forging her signature on an arbitration agreement, an attempt to push the wrongful-death claim out of open court and into private arbitration.

The case went to trial in the summer of 2022. The jury sided with the family on both claims. It awarded $375 million in compensatory damages and $7 billion in punitive damages, a total verdict of $7.375 billion, and found that Charter had knowingly and intentionally committed forgery with intent to defraud or harm.

The $7 billion punitive figure never entered a judgment. When the family moved for entry of judgment, they voluntarily remitted the punitive award to twice the compensatory damages, which is the ratio the U.S. Supreme Court's due-process decision in State Farm v. Campbell makes defensible, bringing the punitive component to $750 million. Judge Juan Renteria signed the final judgment on September 19, 2022. With prejudgment interest, it totaled $1.147 billion, divided among five plaintiffs at $150 million in exemplary damages each, plus their actual damages.

Charter said it would appeal. Rather than litigate the full $1.147 billion figure through the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas, the family agreed on January 18, 2023 to a further remittitur, accepting $262 million (comprising $87 million in actual damages and $175 million in punitive damages) in place of the larger judgment. Within days, Charter reached a confidential settlement for an amount below even that reduced figure. Charter's own securities filing described the settlement as reached at its insurers' insistence and fully within its liability coverage; the dollar amount itself was never made public.

With the case resolved, Charter moved to dismiss its own pending appeal. The Fifth Court of Appeals granted that motion in June 2023, and mandate issued on September 6, 2023, closing the docket. Because the appeal ended by dismissal rather than a ruling on the merits, the $262 million remitted judgment was left in place as the last figure a court fixed in the case; what Charter actually paid under the settlement has never been disclosed. Trial coverage by The Texas Lawbook and Courtroom View Network named Chris Hamilton and Ray T. Khirallah Jr. of Hamilton Wingo LLP as the family's trial counsel, and the Fifth Court of Appeals docket lists Christopher S. Hamilton and Brad Jackson of the firm as counsel of record for the family on appeal.