Legal Environment: The Punitive Damage Equation - Essay Example

Legal Environment Punitive damages, sometimes referred to as exemplary damages, are damages that are meant to deter the defendant from engaging in similar conduct to those which formed the basis of the lawsuit (Beatty 32). The damages are often warded in a context where compensatory damages are deemed inadequate remedy. The Supreme Court limits the punitive damages in most cases to nine times the compensatory damages awarded in the same case (Beatty 34). In my own opinion, this is not a sensible guideline; rather the court should lower the number of times the punitive damages are awarded. This is because the compensation does not bear a reasonable relationship with the actual damages. I opine that the court should limit the punitive damages to at most five times. Alternatively, the punitive damage equation can be evaluated based on defendants’ financial position. The McDonaldss hot coffee case gives rise to the attacks on the frivolous lawsuits in U.S. The complainant, Liebeck, spilled hot McDonalds coffee in her lap and suffered a third burn. Evidence showed that the coffee was brewed at 190 degrees; typically a restaurant’s hot coffee is in the range of 140 degrees to 160 degrees. A jury awarded Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million as punitive damage. Later, the judge reduced the award to $480,000, which was 3 times the compensatory award. In my own view, the compensation awarded was justified. I base my arguments on the evidence that was tabled to the jury during the trial. Notably, the fact that McDonalds personally admitted that it had known the risks that were posed by serious burns from the dangerously hot coffee for more than ten years. As if that is not enough, the risks had previously been brought to attention by other people. Often, celebrities have problems with paparazzi and tabloids since they will pay anything to get their images in order to quench the public desire. Unfortunately, the paparazzi often pursue taking these photographs without considering the safety or consent of the celebrity. Consequently, this makes it difficult for famous people to win liberal lawsuits because they must show actual malice. In my own opinion, celebrities do not deserve any special protection from the law besides what is given to the average citizens. This is because they are normal citizens except they have chosen a different career path. It is not the responsibility of the state or the law to provide them with special consideration like using the public money to protect them. One benefit that obviously arises from their high profile is wealth. They should exclusively use their personal wealth to hire their security personnel to provide them with privacy. If I was the vice president in charge of personnel at a large manufacturing company, and it happens that I recommended Gates, an employee in the company whom I have duly fired over allegations of computer equipment theft, to the personnel officer in another company I would not recommend him. The law requires that all the information I utter while recommending Gates for another job be done in good faith and utmost be true (Beatty 132). Unprivileged publication or provision of false statements to the personnel officer in the other company would harm my reputation. Instead, I would inform the personnel officer in the other company about the alleged case of theft against Gates and wait till complete investigation is done. Finally, I would not post the notices around the company informing other employees what happed to Gate until credible and conclusive investigation is done. Caldwell sued K-Mart Corporation for false imprisonment claims and slander that arose from the incidence at the store. False imprisonment claim can be defined as deprival on ones liberty without proper justification. According to the law, in order to identify the cause of action, the evidence provided must demonstrate the defendant (security personnel) restrained the plaintiff, the restrain was deliberate and finally the restrain was illegal (Beatty 151). After analyzing the evidence provided in the incidence by Caldwell, there were more than reasonable facts that she was falsely accused of stealing something and putting it in her pulse consequently. Actually, evidence shows that Caldwell was detained for an approximate of 15 minutes, a clear illustration of liberty deprival. In the scenario provided, Mr. Harris walked on the tracks of the railroad while ignoring the flashing red lights, the bells, and even the shouts from other bystanders to get off the railroad. As a result, her wife sued the railroad on grounds of gross negligence. In my own opinion, the wife is justified to sue the railroad for the negligence although not all precautions were properly followed. The train should have blown the horn in a certain way so as to warn the pedestrians to stand back. According to the federal law, the train ought to have blown the whistle in a certain way. From the scenario presented, it can be concluded that; first, Ryder owed to plaintiff the duty to repair the door strap that was broken, but he did not owe to plaintiff any duty to maintain the rope. Nonetheless, the plaintiff ought to have known the risks of using the rope he selected. This implies that the petitioner was under no coercion to use unsafe nylon rope nor was he prevented from repairing the broken strap or using any other safer way of closing the door. Thus Ryders failure to repair the broken door was too minor and remote to be the exclusive cause of the injury and thus the nexus in the claims between the injury and negligence is totally broken. General Motors Corp owes a duty to all vehicles that were been drove in the highway since the odds of an accident happening were apparent. The scenario provides a factual causation since the truck was stalled because of the faulty alternator. The chain of events is clearly foreseeable. Precisely, General Motors group ought not to foresee what could have happened since it was an unexpected incidence. Therefore in summary, the judgment for General Motors Corp was denied. In the case scenario presented, it would be fair to hold Lonnies company liable for the attack carried out by Steve. The company ought to have done a background check on his career profile especially on previous companies. The federal law requires that a background check be conducted before one is employed though the extensiveness of the search depends on the nature of the job (Beatty 88). In my own view, the situation could have been prevented since either the company could have declined to employ him or give stern implications if it happens that he repeats the same act. In some situations, people can be held liable for the acts of others. For example, the bartenders can legally be held responsible for the action committed by the people they serve. In my own view, this is fair though there should be exceptions to the same. For instance, if a bar tender serves an underage drunker and once he or she gets out of the bar and cause an accident, then they can civically be held liable for any injuries that might happen to anyone. The intoxicated person should not only be the only one held liable, but also the bar owner together with the bartender should be held accountable. The bar or the individual person having to compensate the damages may have no personal responsibilities for them, but must be compelled to pay since they have assumed some responsibilities to the person who directly was involved in causing them. To determine the stretch of the legal liabilities in such cases, some critical questions must be answered. First, was the injury foreseeable? Was there any connection between the injury and the duty to foresee? And finally, are there any substantial reasons or policy considerations why the person ought to have taken more care to foresee the possibility that the other party might be injured? As a judge, I side with the plaintiff who in this scenario is the police officer. First, there are exemptions in which a search warrant is not required from the courts in order to seize. The law provides exigent circumstance, a situation where the process of getting a valid search warrant could compromise or lead to the loss of crucial evidence. Such is a situation which confronts the police (Beatty 163). There is a probable chance that if Smith knew in advance that the police were coming to search her phone’s details, she could have deleted any call records between her and Northern. Moreover, a cell phone is an electronic address book and the law provides that the police can search address book without prior warrant from the court. If I was the one presiding the ruling of case, equally, I would have sentenced Smith to a 12 years prison. Beyond any reasonable doubt, the lawyer is correct. The law states that a person is innocent until proven guilty. If the judge issued a burden of proving that she is innocent then it would be interpreted to mean that a person is deemed guilty until proven innocent. What is more is that a convicted person must have full knowledge that he or she committed the crime intentionally or willingly. Finally, the constitution allows citizens to rightfully keep and bear arms. In my opinion, the police had a probable cause to do the search. The law holds that a search can be carried can be conducted under statutory powers and exigent circumstances (Beatty 156). In this scenario, the police were just in doing the search since there was a chance that Dorian could have laid. This would mean that if at all she had lied and then there was a notified search in advance, she could have probably hidden the drugs. The ultimate objective when subjecting an offender to conditions is to deter the criminal conduct and rehabilitate him or her. The Sentencing Reform Act affords that the court may issue a broad discretion, but the conditions must be well supervised and reasonably be related to the offense committed (Beatty 167). In my understanding, the condition was helpful since it provided adequate deterrence to criminal activities while protecting the public from further crimes of such nature. However, it should be noted that the act was not done to humiliate the offender. Works Cited Beatty, Jeffrey F. Business Law and the Legal Environment: Standard Edition. Place of publication not identified: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print. Read More