1. IANAL 
America is a lovely country, geographically. In almost all other aspects it confuses and/or scares the living crud out of me.
This week, here in the UK, (former) Prince Harry was awarded ~£100k in damages from a news outfit, for a sustained campaign of phone hacking that may have spanned many years.
Also this week, in the USA, a private individual (Rudy Gulliani) was ordered to pay $148 million to two state election officials. The payment is to include:
$75 million in punitive damages;
$20 million each for emotional distress; LOLWUT
$16 million for Freeman and $17 million for Moss for damage to their reputations
Gulliani himself is supposed to be worth about $50 million.
Not only can he not pay anywhere near this amount, but the two election officials, should they receive this money, will go from being absolute nobodies to multi-millionaires overnight.
We all know that in the glorious land of the free many judges are appointed by political parties (what could ever go wrong with that?) But surely this just makes them look like a land of utter nutcases to anyone looking in from outside.
Some commentators say the whole trial and award is to "send him a message" and the verdict will almost certainly be overturned on appeal. If true, that in itself is bonkers.
Of course, you will find no shortage of Americans calling their legal system broken, but I wonder if anyone would care to explain and/or defend it? Or make the attempt, at least!
America is a lovely country, geographically. In almost all other aspects it confuses and/or scares the living crud out of me.
This week, here in the UK, (former) Prince Harry was awarded ~£100k in damages from a news outfit, for a sustained campaign of phone hacking that may have spanned many years.
Also this week, in the USA, a private individual (Rudy Gulliani) was ordered to pay $148 million to two state election officials. The payment is to include:
$75 million in punitive damages;
$20 million each for emotional distress; LOLWUT
$16 million for Freeman and $17 million for Moss for damage to their reputations
Gulliani himself is supposed to be worth about $50 million.
Not only can he not pay anywhere near this amount, but the two election officials, should they receive this money, will go from being absolute nobodies to multi-millionaires overnight.
We all know that in the glorious land of the free many judges are appointed by political parties (what could ever go wrong with that?) But surely this just makes them look like a land of utter nutcases to anyone looking in from outside.
Some commentators say the whole trial and award is to "send him a message" and the verdict will almost certainly be overturned on appeal. If true, that in itself is bonkers.
Of course, you will find no shortage of Americans calling their legal system broken, but I wonder if anyone would care to explain and/or defend it? Or make the attempt, at least!
