Trial nears in woman’s suit blaming car dealership for letting mechanic who raped her get her address

A trial is scheduled for next month on a woman’s lawsuit alleging that a Newport Beach car dealership’s failure to protect her personal information led to her being raped at her home.

Karen Sommers’ civil suit in Orange County Superior Court contends that in 2005, Travis Dewayne Batten, a mechanic for Fletcher Jones Motorcars, accessed the company’s records to find her home in Newport Beach’s Eastbluff neighborhood. Sommers and Batten did not know each other, authorities said.

Once there, Batten entered through an unlocked door, attacked her, constrained her hands with duct tape and sexually assaulted her. In 2014, Batten was convicted in that case as well as a sexual assault that occurred in Irvine in 2006. He was sentenced to 107 years in prison.

Sommers, who has since moved to Irvine, purchased a car from Fletcher Jones around 2004 and had it serviced there.

“After the incident, it was the worst. I lived in complete despair,” Sommers, 51, told KTLA-TV/5.

She added that Fletcher Jones should secure who has access to its customer records because they “can get into the wrong hands.”

Karl Lindegren, an attorney for Fletcher Jones, said Wednesday that the company cannot comment on active litigation.

According to court records, Fletcher Jones conducted a criminal background check on Batten before his employment but found nothing. A judge decided that the dealership also was “not put on notice that Batten had been misusing and/or misappropriating customers’ private information.”

Sommers, who first filed her case in 2013, is suing for unspecified damages. The jury trial is scheduled to begin June 6.