US high court throws out compensation for accident victim

[Eugene]

Source: Agence France-Presse

US high court throws out compensation for accident victim

1 hour, 56 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court on Monday tossed out a ruling
requiring Ford Motor Co. to pay 55 million dollars in punitive damages to a
driver who was paralyzed in a rollover of her sport utility vehicle.

Without issuing an opinion, the justices sent the case back to a California
appeals court to recalculate damages under new guidelines on punitive
damages.

Benetta Buell-Wilson in January 2002 was seriously injured when her 1997
Ford Explorer flipped over as she tried to skirt an obstacle on the road.
The roof of her car caved in and crushed her spine.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070514/ts_alt_afp/usjusticeautoford_070514172553

[xchrom]

1. how much in punitive damages does someone with a crushed spine deserve?

what can ever make her whole? -- it wasn't her fault.

this ruling is at it's best -- cynical.

[depakid]

2. The Supreme Court has become an Orwellian institution

No longer deserving of the respect that it once commanded.

"In another case, the court said a punitive award cannot be a punishment for harm to others."

Boggles the mind....

[texastoast]

3. The Supreme Corporate Court

Bought and paid for.

It started happening in Texas in the early 90s when the Republican deathgrip overtook the "supreme" court here. Now it has happened to the former highest court in the land.

[Warpy]

5. I think they were right to toss it back to the state courts

and it would be hilarious if that court decided to calculate those punitive damages upwards simply because the lawyers for Ford were heartless.

I don't want the USSC deciding tort law until a few of the conservatives on it are no longer there.

[damntexdem]

10. What? You'd want punitive damages to be punishment? Can't have that!

Next thing, litigants would ask that compensatory damages actually compensate!

Who knows where it might end?

;-)

[gratuitous]

7. Punitive damages, not compensatory

Compensatory damages are awarded to make up for the loss a person sustains from someone else's negligence. Someone with a crushed spine can't make a living, and probably requires around the clock care. The plaintiff would be awarded damages based on lost earnings, loss of earning capacity, and the cost required for care for the rest of her life.

Punitive damages, on the other hand, are designed to punish a party's negligence for engaging in conduct that they knew was likely to cause someone to have their spine crushed. The propensity for rollover of a top-heavy SUV like the Ford in question here is well-known, and has been well-known for many years. Despite several other accidents just like the one that gave rise to the lawsuit here, Ford kept making their SUVs without regard to this rollover risk. It was foreseeable, given the accident record and the severity of injuries sustained by drivers and passengers in Ford's vehicles, that someone would sooner or later be killed or severely injured as the plaintiff was in this case. Hence, punitive damages are an appropriate remedy when other remedies have failed.

How can a plaintiff suffering such an injury ever be made whole? She can't. But we've agreed, as a society, that an award of monetary damages is the best we can do. I wouldn't mind seeing auto executives given the task of providing care to the persons they've crippled on an ongoing basis, just so they can appreciate the tasks of cleaning up someone else's shit for a change.

[stillcool]

9. what a great explanation...

thank you. :hi:

[xchrom]

12. but there's been a recognition that you can't really separate the two

in the minds of the jurors -- they seek to punish as well as compensate.

i wouldn't mind if they had awarded all that money as compensation.

but jurors do seek to dole the punishment this way -- those millions of dollars.

probably what the claimant wanted -- but the jury agreed and i'm certain they knew they were giving all that money to someone with a spine crushed as a result of negligence on the part of the manufacturer.

i mean technically you're right -- but i know if i were on that jury -- i would find it very difficult not to be able to put myself in her shoes.

[Occulus]

13. Good explanation; I think it goes further, though

"In another case, the court said a punitive award cannot be a punishment for harm to others."

Now, parse that sentence. I think what they're saying on this other case is that punitive damages cannot be handed down by a jury if the case is solely about one person harming another. So, in two decisions, the SCOTUS has effectively made punitive damages against corporations even more difficult and at the same time made holding responsible the individuals who make up the corporation immune from punitive damages from a personal standpoint.

IANAL, but in decisions like this, I've found it's often a useful rule of thumb to presume a SCOTUS decision will rule against the individual citizen and in favor of the legally ordained group and its members. I'd love to be wrong, but.....

[gratuitous]

15. That may be referring to Williams v. Philip Morris

I did some work on that case, organizing and producing plaintiff's exhibits at trial, and typing up the state appellate court briefs. It's curious in the tobacco case that on the one hand, Philip Morris was whining about possibly having to pay punitive damages in the case of the late Jesse Williams, because if this suit was successful, others would surely follow. On the other hand, they argued that evidence of other people being harmed by their fraudulent practices shouldn't be allowed in court, because that would prejudice the jury. The upshot was basically, "You can't tell the jury about the other people we killed, unless we want to talk about it in the context of other suits that will follow." The Supremes got duped by this flimsy argument, but the Oregon Supreme Court will have another go at it later this year.

The whole idea of punitive damages is that the corporate wrongdoer hasn't reformed its practices even after being held liable for injuring or killing its customers time and time again. The Supreme Court seems to be saying in effect now that punitive damages are never appropriate because any evidence of past failure to reform lethal practices can't be used against a corporation, and evidence that future plaintiffs will line up to hold the corporation accountable in future suits.

The Supreme Court has gotten incredibly muddled on this point in the past decade or so in an effort to excuse a whole host of corporate wrongdoing.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. Indeed.

Despite several other accidents just like the one that gave rise to the lawsuit here, Ford kept making their SUVs without regard to this rollover risk.

And in compliance with all applicable government safety regulations, not that that's an excuse. Cars like the Explorer are prone to rollovers by nature, regardless of the strength of the roof, and the auto companies do a lousy job of communicating this to customers.

The reason the case was sent back, which isn't cited in the article, is because the Supreme Court believes that punitive damages should only apply to harm suffered by the plaintiff, not to other people who aren't parties to the lawsuit.

[underpants]

17. Foreseeable or known?

Great post first of all

Second-as I have read about cases such as this it almost always turns out that the punitive damages result from not just a "should have known" (foreseeable) aspect but "Did know"(cost/benefit analysis) as with the Corvair and the swimming pool pumps (Edwards) etc.

Is foreseeable a basis for punitive damages too? Can the court say "you SHOULD have known"??? Does that mean that failing to test/design for events is no excuse?

[gratuitous]

19. "Should have known" is an element of negligence

"You should have known, but you didn't do anything about it" is an element of an allegation of negligence. The elements necessary for punitive damages vary by jurisdiction, but usually require a showing of reckless disregard of or indifference to the injuries that could occur. In the tobacco case, there was a 45-year paper trail of executives, researchers, attorneys and other factotums talking about the obvious dangers of smoking, and how they should best act to keep the "controversy" alive and to insulate themselves from the consequences of their conduct.

I imagine that in the Ford case there is documentation of folks saying, in effect, "Sure, these vehicles can be deathtraps, but they're so darned profitable that we can easily justify a higher price to pay off the survivors of anyone who gets killed in these rigs." That would lead to a finding of recklessness or the kind of elevated intentional negligence necessary to trigger a punitive damages claim.

[underpants]

20. Thank you

:hi:

[damntexdem]

8. They're just serving the interests they were appointed to serve:

those of corporate greed.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Well, we are currently paying $2000 wereguild per body

for Afghani and Iraqi citizens we "accidentally" kill. So, I would guess a crushed spine at $150.

[AngryAmish]

22. Punitive damages are not meant to make her whole

punitive = punishment for the wrongdoer

compensatory damages to make one whole.

[DU9598]

4. Send them back to law school

This court has forgotten the meaning of punitive damages ... they are to punish. How do you punish a big company with hundreds of millions in profits? $5,000 civil penalties will not cut it. We are all made less safe by the actions of these business-supported thugs.

[melody]

6. Taking care of their true masters, as usual n/t

[Joe Bacon]

14. Love that PRO LIFE Court!

I bet if it was Little Freddy or Freida Fetus in the SUV, the court would have ruled the other way!

[qwlauren35]

18. I think punative damages need to be dealt with differently.

I don't think all of that money NEEDS to go to an individual victim. I think some of it should go into trust for anyone else who might be similarly affected by the negligence of the company.

It is not likely that this one individual is the only person who has experienced a problem with the car if the company was negligent.

That's why I believe in class action suits. This suit should have been expanded - then the award would have made more sense.

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. Prison Terms for CEO's as Punative Damage

If you want to see these practices end in a hurry. Put William Ford behind bars for 90 days as part of the punative damages. 55 Million might get him to scratch an itch. Spending time behind bars will get his attention. The trickle down affect will be anybody who was part of the process that put him there will be out on the street in a heartbeat. Nobody will be willing to take the risk of putting the big boss behind bars.