11-06-2007, 02:35 AM
Maybe the family should start protesting outside wherever these guys hold service? Picket around their homes, tit for tat style? But this lawsuit thing is kind of silly.
In the first place, I am not a big fan of "punitive damages". It is the job of criminal law to punish wrongdoers. Juries in a civil suit should not be able to order me to pay someone 80 gazillion dollars just because they think I'm a slimeball, no matter how right they may be. After all the world has lots of slimeballs, but only a select few are rich enough to get sued. How fair is that?
So that leaves compensatory damages, which if I'm not mistaken are supposed to actually compensate for something that was lost. I'll go with Lemming's cost of 2 funerals, and we can throw in legal costs for the suit. As crass as this group's protest was, there is no way it cost the family 3 million dollars in any tangible fashion. If you want to sue for emotional distress, you ought to have psychiatrists bills to be compensated for and not some random 7 figure amount you feel like trying for.
With regards to the religious aspect, there is nothing too crazy about predestination or total depravity. These days even people with no religious conviction may believe that they cannot overcome what genetics has passed to them. Trying to interpret the will of God in tragic events though... maybe they need to reread the book of Job.
In the first place, I am not a big fan of "punitive damages". It is the job of criminal law to punish wrongdoers. Juries in a civil suit should not be able to order me to pay someone 80 gazillion dollars just because they think I'm a slimeball, no matter how right they may be. After all the world has lots of slimeballs, but only a select few are rich enough to get sued. How fair is that?
So that leaves compensatory damages, which if I'm not mistaken are supposed to actually compensate for something that was lost. I'll go with Lemming's cost of 2 funerals, and we can throw in legal costs for the suit. As crass as this group's protest was, there is no way it cost the family 3 million dollars in any tangible fashion. If you want to sue for emotional distress, you ought to have psychiatrists bills to be compensated for and not some random 7 figure amount you feel like trying for.
With regards to the religious aspect, there is nothing too crazy about predestination or total depravity. These days even people with no religious conviction may believe that they cannot overcome what genetics has passed to them. Trying to interpret the will of God in tragic events though... maybe they need to reread the book of Job.