security vs value

whatever the value, Walmart will not be undersold, they will match or beat the price

Insurance companies put a "value" on people's lives, and so do courts when they award damages. When deciding safety standards, e.g. for trains, calculations are made about cost/benefit ratios. So if it cost 1 trillion dollars to save an estimated 5 lives over the next 10 years, by mandating new stronger rail coaches and better signalling systems, said sum to be recovered from rail fares, they aren't going to do it. There is always going to come a point where the cost is too much.

Like my mama, Roseanne Rosanna Blythe used to tell us, "If it's not one thing, it's another. Your shoe fits too tight; the sushi ain't raw enough; the inlaws want to borrow bail money; somebody suffers bodily injury. You ain't gonna solve every problem.

Yes it is. The expert is correct because American lives don't have any value you could put on them. He is also right, of course, in confining this depressing observation to American lives. German lives, for example, are much more valuable.

Excellent point, Thomas.

And Latvian lives, of course, are priceless.

In terms of what the UK Department Of Transport is prepared to spend on rail safety, the 'value of preventing a statistical fatality' (VPF), expressed in US currency is about 3 million US dollars.

it's not so much the value but the exchange rate, we canadians are probably valued similarly to americans, but our dollar is about $0.09 less

Some Republicans seem to think you can put a value on human life. They want malpractice capped at about $250,000. So if a doctor kills someone out of negligence that is the price of the patients life. Period.

I don't disagree with that cap, and I'm not a republican.

Heaven forbid someone should express feeling for his own countrymen in public.

Even if you found out that some surgeon operated while drunk on your mother? There was a case like this about 25 years ago. I know. The patient was my best friends mother, she died due to a terrible, avoidable error on the doctor's part. His excessive drinking was well known by a few people on his staff. They claimed he "did not appear drunk" before the surgery. He later admitted he had "a few drinks at lunch" and other people witnessed it. The family did not collect anywhere near what they were awarded. Americans are certainly too quick to sue, but sometimes a point has to be made. It's mostly the insurance companies that put the fuel in this fire and scare people. Like my friend, few people collect the full amounts - or even close.

By the way, I'm related to a whole mess of medical professionals. They complain bitterly about insurance rates - no matter how good their record is. They believe the insurance companies blow up these few cases to keep their rates hight. The actual big number award cases are rather small.

That number seems high.

Do you mean the cap? The suggestion has mostly been around $250,000. The highest suggestion I have seen in print for a life was $500,000.

I don 't know what $number I woud make it.

Note that I oppose that; it is unconstitutional.

No. We put a value on American lives all the time. For instance, it is well-established that lower speed limits save lives. But it is highly unlikely that anyone would advocate 25 mph speed limits on interstate highways just because driving at 25 mph is a lot safer than driving at 65 mph. After all, there's also a value to getting to your destination faster. Still, that's a trade-off, measured in American lives, that we're willing to make. The same goes for any governmental safety regulations: there is often an explicit comparison between the cost of enhanced safety and the number of lives the precaution would save. And it's not just government: industry engages in this kind of calculus too. The best-known example is probably Ford Motor Co's decision to continue producing the Pinto despite serious problems involving the car's exploding gas tanks, where internal memos weighed the costs of fixing the problem with the cost of paying judgments for the dead and injured (as a side note, it is well-known that it's better for a product to kill the consumer than seriously injure him/her, since judgments for the latter are frequently higher than for the former).

In short, American lives not only have a value, they often have a surprisingly low value.

Yeah, I think regardless of the reason of the death the number should be capped; I don't know if $250k or $500k is the right number but it surely needs A cap in that range.

It's not like $150 million dollars is going to bring your loved one back. Are these families happy that their loved one's died because it's now like they won the lottery? Those big lawsuits aren't even going to send a message to the doctor; their insurance company will pay for it.

$250k is enough to cover many of the 4-10 year financial loss implications that results from a loved one dying. It's enough that the family will likely not have to worry about losing their home while they cope with the loss of their loved one. It's sufficient.

If you're in favor of this though then would you also support limitless caps on suing someone when someone dies in an automobile accident? It's no less tragic than dying during surgery.



In the case where they Dr. was drunk, I say give $250k to the family and take away the Dr's medical license.


I'm not unsympathetic.

The cap seems high for someone who has died.

I'd put higher limits on someone who's catastrophically injured but survives.

Are you seriously suggesting a cap on all damages? No state has that.