I believe that punitive damages are by definition simply fines, and so have nothing whatever to do with the plaintiff in a case, and so should not go to the plaintiff nor plaintiff’s attorneys, but to the state. I’m all for injured parties receiving compensation, but that’s what actual damages are for (including amounts for pain and suffering, lost wages, etc). A judgment ideally should restore the injured party to the status quo ante, or come as close as possible. Letting them receive the punitive damages makes them better off than before, and turns the the judicial system into a lottery system.
Punitive Damages
2 thoughts on “Punitive Damages”
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I’m not certain that you’re right about this. Why does the government deserve the damages any more than the victims? It seems odd to have a government gain financially when it has more people doing punitive-damage-worthy things.
Another factor related to deterrence in punishment theory in general: the reason punishments often harm criminals worse than the amount of harm they do is that often, criminals don’t get caught, and so if my crime does X harm and for Y personal gain, and only a 10% chance of getting caught, then the “cost” of the crime to me is .1X, which is often much less than Y.
Can we apply this kind of reasoning to the receipt of punative damages? Maybe. One of the good results of the system is that people get to keep what they deserve, and have it restored when it’s taken away. Another is the peace of mind that comes with such a system — my life is better off with the system in place than not, even if no one ever harms me in a relevant way.
Suppose the system were as you suggested. Then I’d know that if someone unfairly inflicted X damage on me, and I won the suit, then I’d be compensated X. But suppose I know that when damage like that occurs, the victims only manage to collect 20% of the time. Now the expected harm from such an event is not zero, but -.8X.
I don’t see why a lottery system is such a terrible thing. After all, it’s already kind of a lottery whether you managed to identify the guy that hurt you, whether he hired an undefeatable lawyer, whether the judge was in a plaintiffy mood that morning, etc.
The state gets the damages because the state collects fines for misconduct. Unless you want to start arguing that the state shouldn’t even get any fines at all.
As for the expected returns argument: I need to ponder that some more when I don’t have a flight to catch in six hours.
Finally, a lottery system is a terrible thing because it tends to encourage frivolous lawsuits. The DVD player lady is a case in point.