Economics Professor Awarded $27.5m for Looking Like a Terrorist

sedm1000 · 16 Apr 2006 at 16:57

ChroniC said:
It still applies to a sane world.
Ok change be to, live your life as it is now.
I think id go for A

Dont understand - she gets shafted and gets nothing in return?

The problem is the current approach to security in the US. Either the judge disagrees with their methods and is having a dig, else he has judged the case on the severe difficulties that she will now incur in travelling whilst on the list. Either way, the government doesn`t leave it up to the judiciary to decide who is dangerous or not, so any discussion of the "sensible decision" must take into account that such a decision is impossible.

Sanzy · 16 Apr 2006 at 16:57

This brings us back to the man who saved the world and gets $1000 and then someone gets falsely accused and wham $27.5 million seems fair :confused:

PhilthyPhil · 16 Apr 2006 at 16:57

I don’t see why it is the airline that has to pay up. She is being compensated for ‘false imprisonment and malicious prosecution’, surely this is the responsibility of whatever law enforcement agencies were involved and not the airline? The airline has no control over whether or not she is on any terrorist watch list.

Gilly · 16 Apr 2006 at 16:59

Sanzy said:
This brings us back to the man who saved the world and gets $1000 and then someone gets falsely accused and wham $27.5 million seems fair

Who would pay that man if it was more?

There was clear blame in this case.

Should the Russian government not have given the man who saved the world some cash for his nouse?

I don't see what that has to do with this...

SpicyDuck · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:01

PhilthyPhil said:
I don’t see why it is the airline that has to pay up. She is being compensated for ‘false imprisonment and malicious prosecution’, surely this is the responsibility of whatever law enforcement agencies were involved and not the airline? The airline has no control over whether or not she is on any terrorist watch list.

The airline hire their own security personnel probably.

It might be likely that it was the airline staff who first raised suspicion.

Phil.

ChroniC · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:03

sedm1000 said:
Dont understand - she gets shafted and gets nothing in return?

The problem is the current approach to security in the US. Either the judge disagrees with their methods and is having a dig, else he has judged the case on the severe difficulties that she will now incur in travelling whilst on the list. Either way, the government doesn`t leave it up to the judiciary to decide who is dangerous or not, so any discussion of the "sensible decision" must take into account that such a decision is impossible.

No, ok, imagine your her.

You have a fork in the road visible to you. It is
Get on flight - Get off flight. Life as usual
Get on flight - Get treated as article suggests- Get 27m

If you chose the second option you can tell its unrealistic amount as your willing to accept something bad for a lot of money. People get less compensation for losing limbs.

Chronic for President!!!

sedm1000 · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:11

ChroniC said:
No, ok, imagine your her.

You have a fork in the road visible to you. It is
Get on flight - Get off flight. Life as usual
Get on flight - Get treated as article suggests- Get 27m

If you chose the second option you can tell its unrealistic amount as your willing to accept something bad for a lot of money. People get less compensation for losing limbs.

Chronic for President!!!

She didnt see a fork in the road. She took the flight, was abused and sought compensation for this. The only question is whether her negative experiences (both at the time, and arising from this in the future) are worth such a sum. I dont think that anybody here can correctly judge that. My points have been that most people are missing the full ramifications of her experience.

malfunkshun · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:16

cleanbluesky said:
Still not worth 27m though...

She didnt get 27million for what happened to her, she got some of the 27 milion for what happened "compensatory damages" and the rest to punish the airline "punitive damages"
Punitive damages can be double, or more, the level of compensatory damages.

PhilthyPhil · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:21

OvertoneBliss said:
The airline hire their own security personnel probably.

It might be likely that it was the airline staff who first raised suspicion.

Phil.

‘In court documents, three attendants accused Ms Carrington of grabbing them and of threatening to go into the cockpit unless they called the pilot.’

If this is true then I would say that the airline attendants were right to raise suspicion and to have her arrested. How it was later dealt with and the issue of her being on a terrorist watch list was out of their control. It does say that the FBI agent who questioned the attendants did not believe them, in that case what did happen? I find it hard to believe that on the mere sight of a woman of Arabic appearance they decided she must be a terrorist. There is not really enough information on what happened to decide who was responsible, however if what these attendants say is true then in my opinion she brought it on herself and deserves no compensation from the airline or anyone else.

Gilly · 16 Apr 2006 at 17:25

We have to go on what the article says. Its her word against 3 staff, but the FBI agent took her word for it. Must be a reason for that, eye-witnesses perhaps.

Her version merely states that she complained.

branddaly · 16 Apr 2006 at 18:05

malfunkshun said:
She didnt get 27million for what happened to her, she got some of the 27 milion for what happened "compensatory damages" and the rest to punish the airline "punitive damages"
Punitive damages can be double, or more, the level of compensatory damages.

So not only do the airline get punished, but so do all their employees? 27.5 million out of a company is often enough to send it under. Then all its staff are out of work, there kids have no food. And one women is sitting on a fortune.

Punish the company by all means, but giving all the money to the claimant just encourages people to sue left right and centre, its one of the most ridculous laws I've seen. Ultimately everyone in the states is paying these claims, and the lawyers, by way of their insurance. How mucked up do laws have to get before people realise that they are being shafted?

malfunkshun · 16 Apr 2006 at 18:13

OMG, just saw the details of the award. $2.5million for compensatory damages and a whopping $25 for punitive damages. Now that is excessive imo.
Unfortunately different states have different rules. As an example I believe the caps in New Jersey on punitive damages are 5x compensatory damages or $22.5million.

Vanilla · 16 Apr 2006 at 18:13

Damn.

I gotta grow a beard and practice my dirka dirka dirka dirk

Unconditional · 16 Apr 2006 at 18:25

The point that seems to have been missed...

Wouldn't people that prefer that flight staff WERE as suspiscous as possible, as oppossed to being lax which leads to another 9/11.

Thus, well done to whoever for investigating(provided they had suitable suspiscion)

The manner in which they did it though should be questioned...but I doubt it was anything like 27 million. Chronic summed it up best.

RetiredGreyFox · 16 Apr 2006 at 18:46

It really is unbelievable when we have had prisoners released after many years and they get about £250,000. The Carl Bridgewater case springs to mind where the innocent got peanuts and suffered for many years. The Birmingham Six and the Guldford Four all got peanuts. This woman gets thrown into jail for a couple of days and gets 27.5 million dollars.

jamoor · 16 Apr 2006 at 19:34

ok how hard is it for you guys to read and understand?
The fine was not calculated from the recievers point of view, but the person who is giving. they intend to punish the airline as much as possible, hence the 27.5m

If it was a smaller airline, i.e ryanair or something then it will be even smaller than that.

Unconditional · 16 Apr 2006 at 20:41

jamoor said:
ok how hard is it for you guys to read and understand?
The fine was not calculated from the recievers point of view, but the person who is giving. they intend to punish the airline as much as possible, hence the 27.5m

If it was a smaller airline, i.e ryanair or something then it will be even smaller than that.

Well surely if thats the case, then the 27.5 million should have been put to use instead of just giving it to the 'victim.' Maybe give her a much smaller amount of money, and used the rest elsewhere.

The 27.5 million could have been used for something useful instead of just insuring that some woman who had a minor inconvenience doesn't have to worry about money ever again.

jamoor · 16 Apr 2006 at 20:43

Unconditional said:
Well surely if thats the case, then the 27.5 million should have been put to use instead of just giving it to the 'victim.' Maybe give her a much smaller amount of money, and used the rest elsewhere.

The 27.5 million could have been used for something useful instead of just insuring that some woman who had a minor inconvenience doesn't have to worry about money ever again.

well what do you want them to do with the money, there are only 2 parties involved in this case, the woman and the airline, they can't exactly give the money back to the airline now can they?

Gilly · 16 Apr 2006 at 20:44

jamoor said:
well what do you want them to do with the money, there are only 2 parties involved in this case, the woman and the airline, they can't exactly give the money back to the airline now can they?

They could have. They could force the airline to pay for training for their staff

Vertigo · 16 Apr 2006 at 22:26

xolotl said:
I think in the USA compensation is designed to be punitry. Which is why you get these ridiculous sums of money. Whereas in the UK its purely compensatory.

Fair enough, but the fact the punitive charges go to the victim just exacerbates the litigious culture in the US, encouraging more people to sue for whatever they can think of.

Surely a more reasonable system would be for the compensatory part to be passed to the victim and the punitive part be given to a charity of their choosing?

Please bear in mind that none of the above is intended to express any opinion about her entitlement to the $27.5m. There simply aren't enough facts to know whether this figure is warranted or what percentage of it is compensatory or punitive.