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It’s just an unfortunate fact pattern. Compensatory damages are by design supposed to be a quantifiable number that you can directly point to on a ledger somewh

It’s just an unfortunate fact pattern. Compensatory damages are by design supposed to be a quantifiable number that you can directly point to on a ledger somewhere. Mann claims to have lost grants, and indisputably lost reputation, but has remained employed at a seemingly proper level throughout his career. Scientists don’t get kickbacks from grants, so no quantifiable losses _to Mann_ there. Loss of reputation is hard to quantify, though it is sometimes done by having a PR expert testify “this is how much it would cost to restore a person’s reputation to its previous state”, but considering Mann’s previous state was “unknown to the public”, that’s also tough to do. IIRC, Mann has had to have private security at various points, but that was paid for by his employer, so Mann can’t be compensated for it. It seems like in the absence of hard numbers like that, the jury decided to compensate using punitive rather than trying to make up a number, and no party is allowed to tell the jury that that will get struck down.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Scientists don’t get kickbacks from grants What? It was my impression that scientists draw salary directly out of the grant, and that many scientists do not earn any salary other than what comes out of their grants.
- epistasis 3y ago
  You get a salary that can be paid from the grants, but if you get $1m or $20M in grants it's not going to be a change in your salary. At least until you negotiate a higher salary. And if you don't get the grants in the next cycle, the university will be paying your salary.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  So Mann's salary is whatever, call it $500k/year, paid for by Penn State. He brings in grants to perform research that justify to Penn State why it's worth it to pay him that $500k/year (e.g. a $5M grant will include some amount for the PI + research assistants, some amount of lab spend, some amount of overhead to Penn State). If that grant doesn't materialize, Penn State is still on the hook for that $500k. That's why it was tricky for Mann to prove damages here - Penn State was likely harmed, but Penn State didn't sue.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> Scientists don’t get kickbacks from grants What? It was my impression that scientists draw salary directly out of the grant, and that many scientists do not earn any salary other than what comes out of their grants.

epistasis 3y ago
You get a salary that can be paid from the grants, but if you get $1m or $20M in grants it's not going to be a change in your salary. At least until you negotiate a higher salary. And if you don't get the grants in the next cycle, the university will be paying your salary.
mikeyouse 3y ago
So Mann's salary is whatever, call it $500k/year, paid for by Penn State. He brings in grants to perform research that justify to Penn State why it's worth it to pay him that $500k/year (e.g. a $5M grant will include some amount for the PI + research assistants, some amount of lab spend, some amount of overhead to Penn State). If that grant doesn't materialize, Penn State is still on the hook for that $500k. That's why it was tricky for Mann to prove damages here - Penn State was likely harmed, but Penn State didn't sue.