Should Exxon pay Punitive Damages?

Diuretic said:
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I'm drawing the line because my knowledge of copyright is now finished.

I will speculate that there is a difference between copyright and the broader idea of intellectual property rights. And all I can do now is speculate and suggest that - in my jurisdiction at least - copyright and IP are separating in terms of how the law views them. Fine detail and, as I said, outside my area of knowledge. I'd indebted to you for the information.

On general deterrence, I think it's created as a result of the intersection of penal theory, black letter law and political expediency and like it or not it exists and it's accepted as valid.
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pfff...

I just found the harshness of the penalty to be far out of proportion to the crime. I just get senses of injustice like that.

In this age where copying costs so little that people do it for others as an act of charity, I really think we need to find newer ways to look at copyrights, ways that don't infringe on the free flow of information so much. COmpletely abolishing the concept, though, would also be folly.
 
Watermark said:
pfff...

I just found the harshness of the penalty to be far out of proportion to the crime. I just get senses of injustice like that.

In this age where copying costs so little that people do it for others as an act of charity, I really think we need to find newer ways to look at copyrights, ways that don't infringe on the free flow of information so much. COmpletely abolishing the concept, though, would also be folly.
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Yes it's out of proportion, it's moneyed privilege cracking down on a collective threat which is represented, handily for the privileged, in the form of an individual. In a sense this is collective punishment in reverse. She is being punished for the sins of others, a scapegoat indeed. And the moneyed privileged are looking at the rest of us and pointing at her and asking who wants to be next.

However I think the veil has been lifted on the "music business" for many people and that may have longer term ramifications. Radiohead's recent move would have had record company types crapping their pants.
 
Agnosticus_Caesar said:
Excessive fines? Hmm. Extreme damage to a very large area's ecosystem.

It is KNOWN that oil is toxic to the environment. If it can be shown that the owner of said oil engaged in irresponsible behavior, even if said irresponsible behavior amounts to not using rigor to choose a subcontractor to transport said toxic material, that owner is STILL responsible for the contamination of any area by said toxic material.

You cannot simply hire inept, or irresponsible third parties, and then claim innocence when said party causes damage. No more than you can claim innocence to murder when you hire a hitman.
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and as stated above, they have already paid over $3b in clean up and compensation for those effected. They also changed their policies to avoid something like that happening again. This particular case also led to the transporters increasing safety measures with regards to the ships they use to help avoid this type of incident from reoccurring. Just what lesson is it that the $2.5b in punitive damages is supposed to teach? That even if you clean up after a mistake, make changes to avoid repeating the mistake, pay the fines imposed, pay reparations to those effected that you are still going to get hit with a $2.5b punitive damage?
 
Watermark said:
You see? I don't believe the supreme court decision that stated that corporations actually ARE individuals is correct, but it doesn't give the government free reign to do whatever it wants with stockholder property.
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Ohh like destroying company assets when prohibition went into effect ?
 
Watermark said:
Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
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THe 8th Amendment is about criminal punishment ONLY. It has nothing to do with the imposition of damages in civil cases including punitives. Punitive damages are indeed to punish for bad acts done knowingly. If, as the appelate court suggests, that Exxon KNEW it's employee (to answer your question top) was a serveral time faltering alcoholic that had some problems at work with alcohol then they were more than just negligent. It was reckless disregard for the danger that their captain presented anytime he took the wheel of a single hulled supertanker. And as others have pointed out, the jury heard this case and decided that 2.5 billion was a proper punishment for that disregard. Unless someone can show the finding was arbitrary and capricious or based on emotionalism and not the facts then the courts should NOT disturb that verdict.
 
Socrtease said:
THe 8th Amendment is about criminal punishment ONLY. It has nothing to do with the imposition of damages in civil cases including punitives. Punitive damages are indeed to punish for bad acts done knowingly. If, as the appelate court suggests, that Exxon KNEW it's employee (to answer your question top) was a serveral time faltering alcoholic that had some problems at work with alcohol then they were more than just negligent. It was reckless disregard for the danger that their captain presented anytime he took the wheel of a single hulled supertanker. And as others have pointed out, the jury heard this case and decided that 2.5 billion was a proper punishment for that disregard. Unless someone can show the finding was arbitrary and capricious or based on emotionalism and not the facts then the courts should NOT disturb that verdict.
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I'm sorrry, Socrates, where does it say that in the ammendment? "Only criminal fines, not civil"? I must have missed out on that, but I read it to mean that extreme and out of proportion punishments in general were not allowed.
 
In my opinion, Exxon should not only not pay the damages, they should sail 4 massive tankers into the middle of the Atlantic and light them on fire.
 
Cleaning up the mess you made, and compensating those who were hurt, is NOT ENOUGH.

Those who are cutting corners would then conclude "I can cut corners, and if it does cause disaster, all I have to do is clean up after myself".

The threat of punitive damages seeks to prevent the situation where the "Bean Counters" determine that it is less expensive to apologize after the disaster, than it is to prevent said disaster.
 
Well, in the copyright infringement listed above, conviction of this white-collar crime is so infrequent that statutory penalties are set sky high, for out of proportion to the crime, in order to set make an example out of a few unlucky individuals. Statutory penalties do not always have the function you proscribed to them.
 
Agnosticus_Caesar said:
Cleaning up the mess you made, and compensating those who were hurt, is NOT ENOUGH.

Those who are cutting corners would then conclude "I can cut corners, and if it does cause disaster, all I have to do is clean up after myself".

The threat of punitive damages seeks to prevent the situation where the "Bean Counters" determine that it is less expensive to apologize after the disaster, than it is to prevent said disaster.
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Yes, this reminds me of the celebrated Ford Pinto case.
 
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