posted on Jan, 1 2007 @ 03:13 AM
There are times when someone has done something really bad and deserves to be punished with a large judgment. The problem with the justice system is
that judges and juries do not seem to grasp what exactly *really bad* should mean and what exactly an appropriate large judgement should be. For
example, if a company caused thousands of children to die a slow, painful death, this would be *really bad* and should be punished with a large
judgement. On the other hand, if a company caused two children to have their feelings hurt and it ruined their birthday party, then the company
should not be punished.
I am a law school student, BTW, yet I find how the law works to be disturbing as it has deviated further from its roots. Six hundred years ago, there
were only five torts: assault (creating the apprehension of bodily contact), battery (causing harmful or offensive bodily contact), trespass to
land, tresspass to chatels (messing with people's things), and false imprisonment. All these required the defendant to act intentionally. You could
only sue for those five offenses and nothing else. Negligence was later added, and it covered damages to people and property that were caused by lack
of care. This seems to make sense as it originally covered accidents that the original five torts did not cover. After all, if a bus driver causes a
bunch of children to die because he falls asleep at the wheel, it would be propper for him to be sued. The part where the law lost me is when it
comes to emotional injuries. Here someone can sue for having their feelings hurt. The tort was originally created when some guy in the garbage
collection industry was threatened with violence. This threat of violence was not covered by assault. This seems to make sense, but this tort has
been extended to all sorts of areas like the Black guys Kramer yelled at in the nightclub having a suit, sexual harassment cases involving some guy
telling a semi-dirty joke on two occasions, etc.