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60 votes, 4 comments
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Justice for the family of a fallen soldier

Link link by ldsudduth on 31 October 2007, tagged as justice, westboro, baptists, jury, lawsuit, and award

Westboro Baptist Church (you know them--they like to protest at military funerals because they believe God is punishing America for being tolerant of gays.) has been ordered to pay a grieving family of a fallen soldier $11 million. I think it's justice. W

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Justice, But That's a Lotta Money.. by gnifyus :: NR7 :: on 31 October 2007

What they were doing was ridiculously horrible, but I still never quite understand the tremendous amounts of money in these cases.

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RE: Justice, But That's a Lotta Money.. by scottb :: NR7 :: on 01 November 2007

That's because it's seldom reported clearly. The money is divided into two parts - first, the "actual damages", which are supposed to directly compensate the plaintiff for their loss, and second, the "punitive damages", which are supposed to deter the defendant from offending again.

In a case like the tobacco companies face all the time - wrongful death due to use of their products - the actual damages end up being something on the order of what the victim would have earned through the rest of his life, had he survived. Even if he made $100k/year, that'd typically only be in the neighborhood of $2M - Phillip Morris makes 6,000 times that in profit every year, so they could easily treat even a hundred of those cases a year as just the cost of doing business.

So, instead, enough gets added in punitive damages so they'll stop. A few years ago, there was a case where the jury awarded $28 billion in damages to a smoker, but the judge overruled them and reduced it to $28 million. And tobacco sales continue.

The punitive damages end up going to the plaintiff, which seems a little odd - but it's hard to think where else they'd go. The only other logical place is for the government to keep them, but that might be a little too tempting to politicians as way to fill the coffers instead of raising taxes.

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RE: Justice, But That's a Lotta Money.. by gnifyus :: NR7 :: on 02 November 2007

That does add perspective when taken in context of being a punishment.

But these people are still so proud of themselves.

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RE: Justice, But That's a Lotta Money.. by scottb :: NR7 :: on 02 November 2007

Yeah, well those yahoos deserved what they got. Please note - nobody even suggested that a bunch of atheists should go taunt the family of recently deceased Gary Aldridge...