4 ms·

Damages shouldn't be subjective but based on the acts committed.

by emilfihlman 3y ago

forinti 3y ago
So if you show your fist to a child or to Mike Tyson it's the same threat?
- batch12 3y ago
  > So if you show your fist to a child or to Mike Tyson it's the same threat? Based on the meaning of the word threat, yes.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    No. Think forward and imagine you escalate on the threat, by punching your interlocutor. Your act is the same in both cases, but the physical injury to Mike Tyson will likely be minimal whereas that inflicted upon the child would be significant, perhaps even severe. To say they were the same would be like considering two similar mathematical operations to be equivalent without considering the quantities involved.
    - grepfru_it 3y ago
      Emotional injury would also occur, the child is growing and would interpret the act drastically differently than a world champion boxer
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - batch12 3y ago
      Thats risk. The threat is the potential action. The risk is the potential for loss or impact.
  - saghm 3y ago
    If I showed my fist to Mike Tyson, he's pretty likely to guess that I would fail miserably if I tried to follow through, and I'd be the one who ended up getting punched...and he'd be right. It's not crazy for the legal system to take that into account.
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
I love “computer people incorrectly try to transfer their ‘expertise’ to law”. Gotta be one of my favourite parts of HN.
- debugnik 3y ago
  Sound to me like they're talking (their) philosophy rather than existing law. I for one agree, harassment shouldn't be considered lesser just because the victim admits to having a thick skin.
  - sarchertech 3y ago
    There’s a few things going on here. In a civil case, we are concerned with righting a wrong as much as we are with deterring future bad behavior. To attempt to undo damage, you need to know how much damage was done. Additionally, some civil offenses do come with precomputed statutory damages, but it’s not possible to come up with such a number for every possible scenario. In the case where there isn’t a precomputed number available we fall back to computing a number after the offense happens based on the circumstances at hand.
  - emilfihlman 3y ago
    Exactly
  - Viliam1234 3y ago
    There are problems either way. If the fine is proportional to psychological harm, it punishes the victims who admit to having a thick skin. If the fine is not proportional to psychological harm, it makes bullying the most sensitive people too cheap. As an analogy, consider physical harm. We would probably agree that the punishment for slapping someone should be smaller than the punishment for murdering someone. However, what happens if someone is so exceptionally fragile that if someone slaps them, they literally die? What punishment should we apply? If you say "the punishment for murder", the accused will feel that this is unfair. But if you say "the punishment for slapping", then it means that if you know that someone is fragile like this, you can practically murder them for free.
- 3y ago
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Damages shouldn't be subjective but based on the acts committed Congratulations, you’ve turned the courts into a contest between theoretical models of what an act is “worth” instead of considering the facts and circumstances at hand.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  As opposed to the concrete model of "she was a million dollars worth of sad"
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the concrete model of "she was a million dollars worth of sad" What case are you citing? Because this rings truer for popular misconception of how law and equity work.
- roenxi 3y ago
  Are you saying that as aggreement or disagreement? The court is already to settle dueling theoretical models, and it will still settle them by considering facts and circumstances. It should be quite exceptional for a crime to depend on the victim's mental state since someone who spends years learning how to accept the world as it is shouldn't be legally penalised. Although I'm going to say that in the legal sense we might already be handling things this way. I'm sure the judges have considered this in depth.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > court is already to settle dueling theoretical models, and it will still settle them by considering facts and circumstances No, it starts with the facts and circumstances and then lenses them through the law. > should be quite exceptional for a crime to depend on the victim's mental state It is. Emotional damage per se being remediable in law is mostly a myth. This is why we default to actual damages; it largely sidesteps alternate timelines and the unknowable mens rea.
    - 3y ago
xwolfi 3y ago
You're very wrong ! The suffering of the victim matters more than the ability of the culprit to act within a certain legal budget. If someone found a small, legal "act committed = no fine" way to victimize someone to the point of suicide, do you think it should be left unpunished ? Justice MUST be subjective.
- emilfihlman 3y ago
  >If someone found a small, legal "act committed = no fine" way to victimize someone to the point of suicide, do you think it should be left unpunished ? Absolutely not. It should be punished. But if two people do the same thing to someone else, that must result in same damages. >Justice MUST be subjective. This is abhorrent.
lozenge 3y ago
If I send spiders to somebody who ordered it to feed a pet, or I send it to a museum, it's the same act. So same damages due?
- emilfihlman 3y ago
  No? The first one asked for them, the second one didn't. The question is: If there are people 1 and 2, without any other information (like motive) available to us, who send spiders to a and b respectively without anything else being done wrong, a and b should receive same compensation and 1 and 2 the same punishment. If courts can prove that say 2 knew that b was allergic to these spiders and sent them anyways, that's no longer about sending spiders but causing potential bodily harm. This doctrine is used nowadays in many places already, ie trying to do something even if you don't succeed is criminal in many cases.

Damages shouldn't be subjective but based on the acts committed.

forinti 3y ago

So if you show your fist to a child or to Mike Tyson it's the same threat?

batch12 3y ago
> So if you show your fist to a child or to Mike Tyson it's the same threat? Based on the meaning of the word threat, yes.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  No. Think forward and imagine you escalate on the threat, by punching your interlocutor. Your act is the same in both cases, but the physical injury to Mike Tyson will likely be minimal whereas that inflicted upon the child would be significant, perhaps even severe. To say they were the same would be like considering two similar mathematical operations to be equivalent without considering the quantities involved.
  - grepfru_it 3y ago
    Emotional injury would also occur, the child is growing and would interpret the act drastically differently than a world champion boxer
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - batch12 3y ago
    Thats risk. The threat is the potential action. The risk is the potential for loss or impact.
- saghm 3y ago
  If I showed my fist to Mike Tyson, he's pretty likely to guess that I would fail miserably if I tried to follow through, and I'd be the one who ended up getting punched...and he'd be right. It's not crazy for the legal system to take that into account.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago

I love “computer people incorrectly try to transfer their ‘expertise’ to law”. Gotta be one of my favourite parts of HN.

debugnik 3y ago
Sound to me like they're talking (their) philosophy rather than existing law. I for one agree, harassment shouldn't be considered lesser just because the victim admits to having a thick skin.
- sarchertech 3y ago
  There’s a few things going on here. In a civil case, we are concerned with righting a wrong as much as we are with deterring future bad behavior. To attempt to undo damage, you need to know how much damage was done. Additionally, some civil offenses do come with precomputed statutory damages, but it’s not possible to come up with such a number for every possible scenario. In the case where there isn’t a precomputed number available we fall back to computing a number after the offense happens based on the circumstances at hand.
- emilfihlman 3y ago
  Exactly
- Viliam1234 3y ago
  There are problems either way. If the fine is proportional to psychological harm, it punishes the victims who admit to having a thick skin. If the fine is not proportional to psychological harm, it makes bullying the most sensitive people too cheap. As an analogy, consider physical harm. We would probably agree that the punishment for slapping someone should be smaller than the punishment for murdering someone. However, what happens if someone is so exceptionally fragile that if someone slaps them, they literally die? What punishment should we apply? If you say "the punishment for murder", the accused will feel that this is unfair. But if you say "the punishment for slapping", then it means that if you know that someone is fragile like this, you can practically murder them for free.
3y ago

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Damages shouldn't be subjective but based on the acts committed Congratulations, you’ve turned the courts into a contest between theoretical models of what an act is “worth” instead of considering the facts and circumstances at hand.

willcipriano 3y ago
As opposed to the concrete model of "she was a million dollars worth of sad"
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > the concrete model of "she was a million dollars worth of sad" What case are you citing? Because this rings truer for popular misconception of how law and equity work.
roenxi 3y ago
Are you saying that as aggreement or disagreement? The court is already to settle dueling theoretical models, and it will still settle them by considering facts and circumstances. It should be quite exceptional for a crime to depend on the victim's mental state since someone who spends years learning how to accept the world as it is shouldn't be legally penalised. Although I'm going to say that in the legal sense we might already be handling things this way. I'm sure the judges have considered this in depth.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > court is already to settle dueling theoretical models, and it will still settle them by considering facts and circumstances No, it starts with the facts and circumstances and then lenses them through the law. > should be quite exceptional for a crime to depend on the victim's mental state It is. Emotional damage per se being remediable in law is mostly a myth. This is why we default to actual damages; it largely sidesteps alternate timelines and the unknowable mens rea.
  - 3y ago

xwolfi 3y ago

You're very wrong ! The suffering of the victim matters more than the ability of the culprit to act within a certain legal budget. If someone found a small, legal "act committed = no fine" way to victimize someone to the point of suicide, do you think it should be left unpunished ? Justice MUST be subjective.

emilfihlman 3y ago
>If someone found a small, legal "act committed = no fine" way to victimize someone to the point of suicide, do you think it should be left unpunished ? Absolutely not. It should be punished. But if two people do the same thing to someone else, that must result in same damages. >Justice MUST be subjective. This is abhorrent.

lozenge 3y ago

If I send spiders to somebody who ordered it to feed a pet, or I send it to a museum, it's the same act. So same damages due?

emilfihlman 3y ago
No? The first one asked for them, the second one didn't. The question is: If there are people 1 and 2, without any other information (like motive) available to us, who send spiders to a and b respectively without anything else being done wrong, a and b should receive same compensation and 1 and 2 the same punishment. If courts can prove that say 2 knew that b was allergic to these spiders and sent them anyways, that's no longer about sending spiders but causing potential bodily harm. This doctrine is used nowadays in many places already, ie trying to do something even if you don't succeed is criminal in many cases.