Moral Question: A pricetag on a dead life?

[JoJaBuckeye]

Agreed. Look at those scumbags who are suing Brandy. By all accounts, she just got into an accident that could happen to anybody and somebody happend to die. The victim's family of course probably felt, "Woo-hoo! We hit the jackpot" They deserve all the pain they're feeling now.

FWIW, my position is based on a special I saw about a year or two ago. 6 yr old kid in Florida goes in for routine surgery. Per SOP, prescription medicine is placed in unmarked containers for the surgery. A drug that reduces blood pressure gets confused with one that increases blood pressure. The kid's BP rises, and they give him the wrong drug with fatal results.

The surgical team is emotionally obliterated by this accident. Even for the documentary, some months later, they cannot relate their side of the story without crying.

The parents forego ALL financial penalties under the following conditions:

1. all funeral expenses are paid for.
2. all charges for the botched surgery are dropped.
3. the hospital changes its surgical procedures and no longer uses unmarked containers during surgery.
4. the hospital must document and publish this experience so that this standard surgical practice can be changed EVERYWHERE.

The focus of this documentary?

The fact that the medical community was completely indifferent to this family's experience, to the rather obvious practical flaw that caused the boy's death, and to any need for change in surgical practices.

So to clarify my position, I support what this family did. But woe betide the doctor/organization that repeats this mistake in spite of the warning provided!

 

[coastalbuck]

Why not? and I am not.

IMO, punitive damages are akin to a ticket. You got caught doing something wrong and pay the fine.

Assigning them to the state reduces the Lottery Ticket concept and in theory benefits all citizens of the state.

The hard part is how to decide when to assign such damages and how much.

State gov. is too large now, I don't want to see them have anymore dollars to waste. I'm sure they'd like it though, sort of like a second chance to collect income from a person that won't have to pay anymore taxes.

 

[Buckeye Buh Nim]

State gov. is too large now, I don't want to see them have anymore dollars to waste. I'm sure they'd like it though, sort of like a second chance to collect income from a person that won't have to pay anymore taxes.

I can agree with this. IMO they should (if possible) assign the punitive damages to same account they use to account for tax revenue, and offer as a credit to future taxes the cumulative effect of said damages to the state constituents.

i.e. If you get 10 million in accumulated punitive damages, and you process 10 million resident returns, on the following year you offer a $1.00 per resident credit.