Karl Agathon
Golden Member
- Sep 30, 2010
- 1,081
- 0
- 0
^This
The award is completely absurd and over the top. Not disputing the judgement though. She should be awarded compensation, just not that absurd amount.
^This
The award is completely absurd and over the top. Not disputing the judgement though. She should be awarded compensation, just not that absurd amount.
At first, I too thought that was insane. After I read that it was systemic all the way up the corp chain; the lawsuit should have changed into class action & gone for way more than $185 million.
Jimzz
Diamond Member
- Oct 23, 2012
- 4,399
- 190
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This was not a lowly manager abusing someone, this was the entire chain from the bottom region all the way to the top doing this. They also did it to others, 1 that was in charge of helping railroad her.
As others have said they are going to pay to hopefully make this go away and keep others from finding out. A class action suit would kill them now with what has come out. 185m is cheap compared to what may or will come of what they did.
Agree 100% that the company was in the wrong and should be punished severely, considering how high up this went and how pervasive it was.
The award itself is absurd though. She got demoted and eventually fired. $185 million? That's insane.
The award itself is absurd though. She got demoted and eventually fired. $185 million? That's insane.
To be clear, she got about $800k in compensatory damages, which seems reasonable. The entire remainder was punitive damages that were levied on autozone because of the systemic nature of the problem.
Punitive damages against big companies basically have to be large by definition, since they are supposed to discourage repeat behavior. (I imagine $800k is peanuts to autozone)
So, if we can agree that punitive damages are a thing, and they have to be large in order to actually punish, then who should they go to if not the victim? Serious question. To a charity? If so, which one and how do we decide? (Not to mention that it's unlikely any lawyer would go up against autozone for $800k, which is ankther problem)
Murloc
Diamond Member
- Jun 24, 2008
- 5,382
- 65
- 91
because her lost earnings plus moral damages (it's not like they ate her fetus or something) aren't worth 185 million. Nowhere close.
People who get maimed through the fault of smaller companies or single individuals get less money than this despite being much worse off.
But the company has to pay lots of millions (185 seems like a high enough amount if the company isn't too big) since this is a serious discrimination that went up the chain, and not just the compensation, otherwise it's not punished enough (what is 1 million dollars to a big company anyway?).
So what do you do with the balance?
It can go to the state, i.e. society, society itself gets damaged by these practices as well so it makes sense.
If you speed a lot and run over someone and get sued, you still pay the speeding fine (which in my country is proportional to your earnings if it's serious enough, just like the money they took from autozone for this was proportional to their size) to the state.
The reparations go to the victim of course.
It's just not right that if woman has the same thing happen to her in a independent shop, she will get peanuts (which to the company will be a serious fine), despite suffering the same moral and financial damages as this lady. This is unequal treatment.
finally someone properly spells out the real problem, which is not the amount of money taken from the company coffers.
I proposed that the extra cash goes to the state because all traffic fines go to the state too and these earnings aren't earmarked for any specific purpose. So it's easy and consistent.
In certain cases I guess you can find specific uses for the money: assets confiscated from organized crime can be used to promote clean businesses.
In this case though, we're not talking about something that creates lots of regular income (how many lawsuits this big are there yearly really?), but I guess you could make an ad-hoc fund to promote equality on the workplace out of the punitive damages.
Like co-financing company crèches.
Once the money is used up you have a problem though.
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So in other words we have to structure punitive damages in a way where they either destroy any small business that they are applied to or be meaningless to any big business they are applied to?
That doesn't seem to make much sense. Why not let the courts determine what is sufficient to deter future behavior?
I'd be curious what they offered as a settlement? Autozone will probably get nailed in a class action after these revelations.
It is amazing to me people think they can get away with this type of behavior.
It is amazing to me people think they can get away with this type of behavior.
Brainonska511
Lifer
- Dec 10, 2005
- 24,963
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It's amazing to me that people (the ones in charge) even thought that any of this was acceptable behavior in the first place, let alone thinking they could get away with it.
PottedMeat
Lifer
- Apr 17, 2002
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Fenixgoon
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2003
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TheSlamma
Diamond Member
- Sep 6, 2005
- 7,625
- 5
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That's something I've thought about as well, I'm not sure there's a great answer. For megacorps, for a fine to be effective as a deterrent, the amount needs to be very big... but it doesn't seem logical to have someone win the jackpot because they got mistreated by a big company, while someone else suffering the same treatment from a smaller one gets less.
My (completely arbitrary) system would be that the victim gets compensatory damages. Then, if the jury decides on punitive damages, the victim should get a set multiple of the compensatory damages out of that pot, the lawyers would get their contingency fee out of that pot, and the rest would go to a charity (or set of charities) specified by the victim.
So, if she was wronged to the tune of $800k, she should get that, plus lets say 2 x $800k in punitive (so that makes $2.4 mil total), the lawyers get their payment, and the rest goes to a charity of her choice. That it acts as a deterrent for the company, but doesn't result in absurd awards that are wildly different for the same wrong depending on the size of the company that committed it.
Imagine for a second if Apple is ever found guilty of something and there are severe punitive damages. The punitive damages would have to be in the billions for apple to even notice.
What makes the $185 mil even more insane, is that I think there are plenty of other things that a company or someone could do to you that are far far worse, for which you would get very little (if anything). She was definitely wronged, and the company acted in a despicable way for which they should be punished.... but $185 million??
Same here. Seeing such bad behavior from one idiot or even group of idiots at a particular store is one thing, but you would think those higher up in the organization know better, especially those involved in audits, hr and other similar functions.
Am I the only one that thinks the punishment shouldn't just be for the company in terms of punitive damages -- shouldn't those people involved personally also be punished? According to the story some people pressured an investigator to lie about her investigation into the story. Shouldn't there be charges against them?
That's something I've thought about as well, I'm not sure there's a great answer. For megacorps, for a fine to be effective as a deterrent, the amount needs to be very big... but it doesn't seem logical to have someone win the jackpot because they got mistreated by a big company, while someone else suffering the same treatment from a smaller one gets less.
My (completely arbitrary) system would be that the victim gets compensatory damages. Then, if the jury decides on punitive damages, the victim should get a set multiple of the compensatory damages out of that pot, the lawyers would get their contingency fee out of that pot, and the rest would go to a charity (or set of charities) specified by the victim.
So, if she was wronged to the tune of $800k, she should get that, plus lets say 2 x $800k in punitive (so that makes $2.4 mil total), the lawyers get their payment, and the rest goes to a charity of her choice. That it acts as a deterrent for the company, but doesn't result in absurd awards that are wildly different for the same wrong depending on the size of the company that committed it.
Imagine for a second if Apple is ever found guilty of something and there are severe punitive damages. The punitive damages would have to be in the billions for apple to even notice.
While I'm not necessarily opposed to your plan, I'm not sure if it is constitutional.
I don't know enough about how this works to say but can the court force them to pay damages to people who aren't a party to the suit? Can the court force the recipient to pay part of their award to a third party? I wonder if someone who is a lawyer can weigh in.
Perhaps the jury awarded such as a large amount in order to anchor the anticipated negotiations. If you award $185M then a $20M settlement (or whatever the actual amount) would seem like a bargain.
True, but you could probably set up a trust in the name of the victim, and force the company to pay money into that trust. Then you'd have regulations on where that trust money could go and how.
I'm sure there are about 182,941,7164,612,731 issues that would have to be worked through (give or take
), but I think that's a reasonable basis to balance effective punitive damages with equitable outcomes.The legislature can pass a law prohibiting an award of punitive damages in employment discrimination cases. Given that, it would likely be constitutional to pass a law requiring punitive damages (or a portion of said damages) to be paid to the state.
Brainonska511
Lifer
- Dec 10, 2005
- 24,963
- 8,176
- 136
They shouldn't abolish punitive damages. If they did, it would end up like Erisa, where companies gutted retiree health and pensions and all that those screwed could do was either a) accept a worse deal from these companies or b) sue to get their full benefits back. Under Erisa, there are no punitive damages, so companies felt they had nothing to lose by screwing over people, for even if the company lost, the worst case was paying the allotted benefits.
Now, if the legislature wants to change how punitive damages are distributed, that sounds okay (eg 60/40 split with the state or something like that).
This isn't to talk shit, but are you a lawyer? (serious question)
My first thought would be that while the legislature has a good bit of latitude about how the courts conduct their business that banning punitive damages is very different than appropriating them for the state. When you ban them from being awarded you are just limiting what the courts can consider. When you're assigning punitive damages to the state you're taking property, which is pretty different. If that were the case could they direct compensatory damages to themselves as well? If not, why?
If they're going to award such a ridiculous settlement it should be 180,000,000 to charity(s) of her choice and 5 million for her.
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