Wendy Davis needed to clarify claim about Greg Abbott siding with company that hired rapist
Wendy Davis didn’t win for governor in 2014. But our fact check of one of her claims was the No. 1 most-read check of a claim by a statewide candidate for the year.
Kinda clunky, eh?
We rated Mostly True a claim by Davis in a TV ad that as a Supreme Court justice, Republican Greg Abbott found that a company whose vacuum cleaners were sold door to door “had no responsibility” in the hiring of a salesman who raped a customer.
To be precise, then-Justice Abbott said the manufacturer had no duty. But this claim failed to include the substantive detail that Abbott, unlike the court majority, considered most significant an existing agreement between the manufacturer and distributors explicitly giving full responsibility for such hirings to the distributors who, Abbott implied, had control over checking the background of applicants.
Read the original fact check — our ninth-most-read story of the year — here.
