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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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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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