How much is life worth?
Posted by Moonage on 19 Aug 2005 | Tagged as: Opinions
A Walmart producer manager died. Now, the Walmart has been the butt of every single criticism and joke about salaried positions in the US for a decade. Someone doesn’t pay much, their said to be paying "Walmart salaries". So, let’s assume for a moment this was a better than average Walmart produce manager and he was making $$21,700 a year including benefits. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, this guy is 59 years old. He’s probably going to get 10 years max at Walmart. Let’s put his salary for that time at about $217,000 before taxes. Toss in health benefits, $60,000.
Today a jury put a financial value on Robert Ernst of $253,400,000.
That folks, is ABSURD!
Cash isn’t going to bring back "loss of affection". It never did, it never will.
Cash isn’t going to alleviate the mental anguish of losing someone. It never did, it never will.
What this will guarantee is that it will be appealed. Mrs. Ernst will have to go through all this again. Maybe several times. When it’s all said and done, she MIGHT get $300,000 from it. Her lawyers will take most of it. Taxes will take most of it. And, what this will do is cause every single person who ever took Vioxx to sue, creating a mess of lawsuits further complicating the situation.
And, it just adds more fuel to the fire for tort reform.
I don’t disagree with the jury feeling they should punish Vioxx. Send the people responsible to jail. But these awards are nothing but trouble for everyone.
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