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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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First, it was hardly "one lie."

Second, why does it matter whether someone becomes top 1% rich, if that is in fact fair compensation for what they suffered. There are plenty of people, after all, who would refuse any amount of money to be subjected to what some of those parents were subjected to. Either the monetary compensation was commensurate with their damages, or it was not. Whether it puts them in the top 1% or 10% or 0.001% is not relevant.

Finally, everyone seems to be forgetting that Jones presumably profited from telling those lies -- that is, after all, why he said them. At the very least, a tortfeasor who profits from his tort should be forced to disgorge those profits, which in this case might well exceed $10 million.

It does matter because compensation is meant to restore and repair the harm that was done to you. If you never were a multimillionaire, you can not honestly claim to restore harm done to you you should become one. When it's grievous bodily harm (say, you lose your hand, or get cancer) it may be different, because loss of life or quality of life is very hard to repair with money, and even to approach it one needs a lot of money. But here it's not the case, that's why I am questioning the reasonableness. And surely the percentile matters - otherwise how would you know if $10M is a lot or not? Money is a social thing, so to know how much money is $10M you need to look at the society. Maybe in some society even $1000 would be a huge sum of money, but in ours it's not a lot. To have this measure, we need to use percentiles.

Either the monetary compensation was commensurate with their damages, or it was not.

That's my point - I don't see how $10M is commensurate.

There are plenty of people, after all, who would refuse any amount of money to be subjected to what some of those parents were subjected to

That's not a good argument, since that implies infinite compensation for anything that I would never agree to do voluntarily. Let's say I hate you very much, and would never agree to give you my car for a ride, not even for a billion of dollars, I am very stubborn this way. You break into my house one day and take my car for a ride. No harm done to the house or the car, but I feel very bad about it. Does it entitle me to a compensation over a billion dollars? I don't think most people would agree to that as a reasonable approach.

At the very least, a tortfeasor who profits from his tort should be forced to disgorge those profits, which in this case might well exceed $10 million.

That's different from a compensation. Compensation is measured against damages, not profits. If you said the court should take all Jones' profits gained from his lies (let's imagine it is possible to figure it out) and distribute it equally between the victims - that would be a different thing, but that's not what you said.

There are a couple of things wrong with this.

First, suppose there are two victims, each of whom was subjected to exactly the same harassment. Victim A is a multimillionaire, and Victim B is unemployed. You seem to the saying that a $10 million emotional distress verdict for Victim A would be perfectly fine, but that a $10 million emotional distress verdict for Victim B would be be unreasonable. But, if, as you say, "compensation is meant to restore and repair the harm that was done to you," that makes no sense.

Second, let's suppose that I am a regular guy, and my family is harassed. As a result, my wife and five kids each attempt suicide. They all live, but are vegetables, and require around the clock care for the rest of their life expectancy, which, for my kids, is probably 80 years each. So, the jury awards me a verdict of about $50 million ($300/day for 80 years for each kid and 40 years for my wife). Would you say that I have been unjustly rewarded? I doubt it, because I have merely been made whole. Therefore, IF the verdict reflects the damages that the plaintiff has suffered, then it is irrelevant where the sum places him on the income distribution.

And, it seems to me that you agree with that; as you say, "When it's grievous bodily harm (say, you lose your hand, or get cancer) it may be different, because loss of life or quality of life is very hard to repair with money,." Well, yes, and so, too, is emotional distress from extreme harassment. So, it seems to me that your real objection is not that the verdict rendered them rich, but that the verdict did not accurately reflect the damages incurred. Perhaps you think that emotional damages are inherently less harmful than other damages, which is fine: Many people agree with that, and they might be right. But that is very different than your claim that the verdict is invalid because it results in the plaintiff becoming rich.

Similarly, when you say, " If you said the court should take all Jones' profits gained from his lies (let's imagine it is possible to figure it out) and distribute it equally between the victims - that would be a different thing," you are again implying that if that rendered the plaintiffs filthy rich, that would be ok. So, again, you seem to recognize that the outcome for the plaintiffs is not actually a relevant consideration, if the verdict is otherwise just (whether the justice flows from the fact that it accurately compensates the plaintiffs for the damages they suffered, or whether justice flows from delivering just deserts to the defendant).

If you never were a multimillionaire, you can not honestly claim to restore harm done to you you should become one. When it's grievous bodily harm (say, you lose your hand, or get cancer) it may be different, because loss of life or quality of life is very hard to repair with money, and even to approach it one needs a lot of money. But here it's not the case

Claim that the same harassment is more damaging to richer people is absurd. If anything, richer people have more ability to shield from harassment.

I never claimed anything like that. I claimed that if you weren't rich and then became rich, it's not "making your whole", it's much more than that. Your statement of "same harassment is more damaging to richer people" is indeed absurd, but I never claimed anything like it.

I never claimed anything like that.

You did it in

If you never were a multimillionaire, you can not honestly claim to restore harm done to you you should become one.

by claiming that the same harassment should result in different payout based on net worth of victim.

And my claim is that just compensation for attack on you can be much greater than entire net worth before being harassed.

While everything you said is true, it avoids the main crux of @JarJarJedi's point. The typical American makes $1-$2 million in their entire lifetimes and, as awful as lies were, it's really hard to argue that the damage they did to the parents is 5-10 times the amount an American produces over 40 years.

Bringing up Jone's "profit" seems irrelevant, since we're arguing over compensation for the victims (which ought to be decided by the harm inflicted on them), not a fine that goes to the government.

My point is that @JarJarJedi's point is misguided. @JarJarJedi's seems to be saying that it is unjust that the plaintiffs received a windfall that places them in the top 1% of Americans. But focusing on whether it is a windfall is a red herring; the question is whether the amount of damages reflects the harm suffered. Presumably, the jury found that the amount in question merely made the plaintiffs whole, because that is what compensatory damages do ("Compensatory damages are intended to make the plaintiff "whole" for any losses resulting from the defendant's interference with the plaintiff's rights." Transportation Ins. Co. v. Moriel, 879 SW 2d 10 (Tex Supreme Court 1994)). So, although the jury might well have miscalculated, the mere fact that the award puts the plaintiffs in the top 1% or even higher says nothing about whether the award is excessive.

And, it is normal that disgorged profits go to the plaintiff, rather than the govt, because that is what incentivizes the lawsuit in the first place. If we want defendants not to profit from their torts, then we have to allow plaintiffs, not third parties like the govt, to have reason to seek recovery of those profits.

But focusing on whether it is a windfall is a red herring; the question is whether the amount of damages reflects the harm suffered

It looks like you taking only half of my argument. The whole argument is that the windfall is not reasonable exactly because the damage is not windfall-worthy, so to speak. I know that trying to establish order on suffering is always morally suspect and smells wrong, but if we're talking money compensation, there's no way around it. And once we get past that moral objection, I think, absent new information unknown to me, that $10M does not sound very reasonable against the angle of "make the plaintiffs whole".

First, that was your argument, but it was not JarJar's argument, which was:

I do not understand why it is reasonable that a person who was a victim of a lie (admittedly, a very vile and disgusting one, but still one lie), should instantly become top 1% rich just because of it?

Second, I don't know that "windfall worthy" means. Suppose, for example, tomorrow morning I call Nick Sandman on the phone and threaten, "I am going to kill you, you smirking racist." Suppose also that his local federal court has a night court with a super-lightning docket, so that tomorrow evening he wins a judgment of $10,000 against me, which seems perfectly reasonable given that a felony conviction for such threats is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000. See 18 USC § 875(c) and 18 USC § 3571(b)(3). The next day, I do it again. And again, every day for ten years. At the end of that 10 years, Mr. Sandman will have garnered a cool $36,500,000 (I take a break from my campaign of harassment each leap day), placing him in the top 1%. Quite the windfall! Yet I dare say that few would opine that he was not properly compensated for the damage he suffered.

Suppose instead that Nick Sandman lives in the real world, where such courts do not exist, so he delays suing until ten years have elapsed. He demonstrates to the jury that I made 3650 death threats over ten years, and the jury awards him damages of $10K each, for a single lump sum judgment of $36,500,000. Why is that judgment any less an accurate assessment of the damages suffered by Mr. Sandman than were the 3650 cumulative judgments? I don't think there is any way to distinguish them, and hence I don't think the fact that a single large verdict was returned tells us anything, in itself, about whether the verdict reasonably reflects the amount of damages suffered by the plaintiff.

First, that was your argument, but it was not JarJar's argument...

You're replying to JarJar with this post.

Thx. This is why I shouldn't use my phone here.

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