You remember this national story. A young woman claimed that the players had group raped her. Duke University shut down the Lacrosse program. The local DA aggressively pursued the case. Then, the woman was found to be lying, and the prosecutor was fired for helping cook up the case. Surely, the whole thing was unfair and unfortunate for the athletes.
It’s no surprise then, that the players would be suing someone for defamation of character or some such thing. But really, where do you come up with the sum of $30 million as being a fair value?
- Is there a professional lacrosse league that they would have been drafted into had they not lost a year of their college careers? Maybe such a league pays a $30 million signing bonus like the NFL.
- Have these players lost all ability to get a job after graduation? Even if they have (which is likely not the case) what is their earning power? If their average earnings were $100,000 for 40 years, that's $4 million, not $30 million.
- Did the lawyers defending them charge $29 million for their services, leaving the players with a million to supplant their pain and suffering? That's probably not too far off the mark.
This is just one of many examples of how a litigious society costs us all. If the players were to receive $30 million from the city of Durham, how does that get paid? Sales taxes? Property taxes? Increased fees? If the city has insurance that would pay for such damages, how do you suppose the insurance company would pay the claim? Perhaps by raising their rates for future policies?
In the end, when big lawsuits are won, the ultimate payer of the check is society -- you and me -- in some form or fashion. $30 million here, $8 billion there ... it all adds up.
3 comments:
The Duke lacrosse players are suing the City of Durham much more than defamation of character. The law suit is a federal civil rights law suit that deals with city employees and elected officials conciously violating the civil rights of the 3 falsely accused individuals. Furthermore, the city has actively taken steps to conceal their illegal behavior and has refused to take steps to correct it. This is a city whose police department has an publicly aknowledged policy to apply the law differently to Duke students than other persons. Duke police officers are alleged to have participated in falsifying court documents, lying to a grand jury, making maliciously and knowingly false statements in a public attempt to illegally influence the jury, witness tampering, illegal searches, attempting to deny defendants constitution right to attorney, and conducting a blatantly unconstituional lineup among other attrocious behavior.
Additionally Durham voters were chiefly responsible for electing Mike NiFong after almost all of his illegal actions had be highly publicized. All in all, $30 million is a steal of a bargain for Durham. That city is so corrupt that it deserves to be sued for 100's of millions and forced into federal recievership because the majority of it's residents support electing corrupt politicians who want to keep violating civil rights any time they can get away with it, which is pretty often in Durham.
In principle I agree with you that compensatory damages unrelated to actual loss are out of control. That said in this case I hope the players get at least the $30 million and that it hurts Durham a lot. Then perhaps everyone who either willingly co-operated in this witch hunt or simply stood by and let it happen will learn a lesson. However I doubt that.
The Duke boys had their civil rights violated by the city government of Durham. The voters of Durham reelected these same city leadership after the facts had been publicized of the civil rights violations.
This is not a frivilous lawsuit. This suit's aim is reform and the $30 million is necessary to hit the voters of Durham in the pocketbook enough where they give a damn if their city government is trashing the constitutional rights of out of towners.
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