Economics Professor Awarded $27.5m for Looking Like a Terrorist

ChroniC said:
Cant they just as easily remove her from said list
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Obviously not. Otherwise they probably would've done, she'd have received less money because being on the aforementioned list and the resulting circumstances wouldn't have been taken into account and the matter would probably now be finished with no appeal...
 
ChroniC said:
Cant they just as easily remove her from said list, say sorry and maybe give her some free flights. Or 50k or something. How does anyone need 27million in any case.
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Well apparently not if they haven`t already.

If she spends any amount of time lecturing around the country, then the bills for lost time and inconvenience will mount up.

Award will be reduced on appeal and she`ll be removed from the list within 12 months, but its a useful reminder to the authorities there to behave when it come to this sort of thing.
 
I don't think some of you guys are understanding the story right, she didn't get the money just for looking as a terrorist.

It was because she was false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

So she was taken of the plane, probabily strip searched had all her luggage searched and then dumped in a jail all for being Iranian. And this was done in a malicious way.
 
and being on the terrorist watchlist means a lot more than worrying about planes...Shes prolly gonna be followed and watched for a very long time..Everything she does will be monitored...and one day, jack bauer might just turn up and shoot her in the leg....above the knee though, she can still walk.
 
wush said:
I'd love to know the formula used to calculate these massive damages awards. :D

Why not $17.5m? or $10m? or $10,000?
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As I said, it'll be dependant upon the company or organisation being prosecuted.

The large sum is to punish them. Giving a company a £10,000 fine which has a yearly turnover of £500m isn't going to do much, but something like £27.5m certainly will.

Phil.
 
Implication from the article is that the stewardess made it up because she was being a bit vociferous about the usually uselesss Southwestern service... Trolley dollys should be grounded for at least 5 days per month.
 
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sedm1000 said:
Well apparently not if they haven`t already.

If she spends any amount of time lecturing around the country, then the bills for lost time and inconvenience will mount up.

Award will be reduced on appeal and she`ll be removed from the list within 12 months, but its a useful reminder to the authorities there to behave when it come to this sort of thing.
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Heres a good way of judge how realistic this is. If these where your choices pick one

A - Take her position, be put on said list if i give you 27m
B - Be taken off list and get an apology.
 
$27 million is obviously pretty disproportionate to her ammount of suffering, but in the USA, the have punative damages which are designed to punish the company. Fining a huge airline $10,000 is not going to be a punishment as they probably make that in profits in 5 minutes!

Edit - Oops this points been made already!
 
ChroniC said:
Heres a good way of judge how realistic this is. If these where your choices pick one

A - Take her position, be put on said list if i give you 27m
B - Be taken off list and get an apology.
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Judge doesn`t have the authority to do B. Leaves only option A.
 
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wush said:
Yes. But how do they arrive at these exact figures? Not $25m, not $27m, $27.5m. Bingo!
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Well, it'll be based on the exact figures that the company makes as profit etc. It's not like it's $27,513,943... is it?

That .5 is still a lot of money. Hardly anything specific about it that needs to make you think about how the figures are put together.

That's my thought anyway, I don't actually know. :)

Phil.
 
I don't think the lady deserved such a large amount in compensation but the airline definitely deserved to pay that amount out. What would be the point in fining them a few grand?
 
starscream said:
$27 million is obviously pretty disproportionate to her ammount of suffering, but in the USA, the have punative damages which are designed to punish the company. Fining a huge airline $10,000 is not going to be a punishment as they probably make that in profits in 5 minutes!

Edit - Oops this points been made already!
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And we used the same 10,000 figure. Great minds, eh? ;)
 
IMO, the punative damages fine should remain as it is as it adequately punishes the company based upon it's income. I don't agree that it ALL should go to the "damaged" party, but could be used in a more useful manner to stop the same sort of thing happening to someone else.
 
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