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Comment by jobs_throwaway | Hacker News Reader

Sounds excessive until you read:

>Charter was accused of hiring Holden without verifying his employment history and ignoring a series of red flags about his behavior, which included stealing credit cards and checks from elderly female customers.

and

>"Charter knowingly or intentionally committed forgery with the intent to defraud or harm Plaintiffs," Renteria wrote. The family's attorney previously said that "Charter Spectrum attorneys used a forged document to try to force the lawsuit into a closed-door arbitration where the results would have been secret and damages for the murder would have been limited to the amount of Ms. Thomas's final bill."

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Isn't forgery like that illegal beyond merely unethical? Couldn't those attorneys be disbarred? It can't be okay for lawyers to forge documents knowingly.

It would have to be proven that the lawyers knew the documents were forged and weren't simply acting on the representations made by their clients.

Yes but in the case of a major corporation the “client” giving the representation was almost certainly in-house counsel who knew or should have known the agreement submitted was not, in fact, the true agreement. Somewhere in this fact pattern is a very, very unethical lawyer. Perhaps several.

well, likely that they knew or reasonably should have known.

Those lawyers belong in prison. That’s disgusting and unconscionable behavior. I don’t say this often but if that sort of behavior isn’t criminal it ought to be. Their actions were an attempt to defraud this family of the $1.1 billion they’re entitled to receive.

At a minimum, they should be disbarred and held personally liable for damages at an amount that ruins them. Incentives matter, as does sending a message to the next ethically challenged cohort considering such behavior.

>the $1.1 billion they’re entitled to receive

You would agree this is not the norm for wrongful death lawsuits, yes? I mean, at the rate they occur, businesses would all be out of business if it cost $1B every time.

Casually referring to someone being "entitled" to a billion dollars therefore raises the question of why most people aren't; have you any opinion on that?

From what I've heard if you talk to a lawyer about suing they are going to say that potential damages are largely dependent on lost years of life and earnings, and so, say, a retired homemaker isn't worth it.

> I mean, at the rate they occur, businesses would all be out of business if it cost $1B every time.

Yes. That’s _the point_ of punitive damages.

And most people aren’t entitled to these damages because most people haven’t suffered this tort, have they?

Well, you can always draw a distinction because every case is arguably unique.

But there is research that indicate wrongful or negligent death is one of the leading causes of death in the US, up there with heart disease or cancer (now covid probably). And that's just related to medical treatment, not the auto companies, drug companies, and every other business or corporation.

Is this case worse than average? Sure, that seems very plausible. Should the damages be higher than average, sure, why not.

But large businesses face hundreds of lawsuits at any given moment. People die every day because of negligence and don't get a dime, and it seems extreme and unjustifiable that the difference between them and this case is literally infinity to one.

The edge, if you perceive one, in my words (and I think there is) is coming from the sense that propaganda about plaintiff's lawyers has convinced the public most lawsuits are frivolous, versus my knowledge of the "part of the iceberg below the waterline", the sheer volume of serious (but insignificant to large companies in terms of financial liability) lawsuits that you don't know about unless you have some experience (not necessarily as a lawyer) in corporate litigation support.

Also this is reinforced by my life outside of work, where family members and acquaintances have had serious harm done to them via prescribed drugs and medical care, and you know, they didn't get a billion dollars. Did any of them or their families deserve a cool billion? Eh...maybe not, but one should have the grace to justify why their lives weren't worth even a dollar.

>That’s _the point_ of punitive damages.

The point of punitive damages is that they put people out of business? How much do you think it happens? I predict that Charter will not be destroyed by this (assuming it's upheld) and that other companies that might be deterred or destroyed by such an award will continue to (usually) not get anything similar.

It's possible there should be a criminal case - I am vaguely wondering, not being a lawyer, if you could make a case for felony murder.

So I'm not of the view that a billion dollars is too harsh.

> if that sort of behavior isn’t criminal it ought to be

Malfeasance by anyone in the justice system is never criminal. They would never do that to themselves. If the legislature fails to carve out protections, they'll simply make them up out of whole cloth, such as judicial immunity.

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