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> This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for

> This doesn't hold up logically unless I'm missing something, certainly the victim wouldn't be getting fined 329 million if it was decided to be his fault for not looking at the road I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. There's essentially no difference $3M and $300M fine against most individuals, but $3M means very little to Tesla. If you want Tesla's behavior to change - and other automakers take notice and not repeat the behavior - then the fine must be meaningful to them. That's another difference - fining an indivisible is not going to change risks much, the individual's behavior changing is not that meaningful compared to Tesla's behavior changing. And it's not like a huge fine is gonna make a difference in other drivers deciding to be better, whereas other automakers will notice a huge fine.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ratelimitsteve 1y ago
>I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. Only when it comes to rights. When it comes to responsibilities the corporations stop being people and go back to being amorphous, abstract things that are impossible to punish.
- dontlaugh 1y ago
  Would be nice to see executions of corporations as punishment.
  - tialaramex 1y ago
    Perhaps better to achieve symmetry by ceasing to execute humans. You're never going to make executing the wrong corporation as thoroughly wicked as the numerous occasions on which we've executed the wrong human, so you can't make the scores even but you can stop putting more on the total for human misery. Historically it was impractical to permanently warehouse large number of humans, death was more practical = but the US has been doing it for all sorts of crap for decades so that's not a problem here. The US would still have much harsher punishments than Western Europe even without the death penalty, because it routinely uses life-means-life sentences where no matter what you're never seeing the outside again.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      >You're never going to make executing the wrong corporation as thoroughly wicked as the numerous occasions on which we've executed the wrong human What if we garnished 100% of the future wages of all the employees in perpetuity as well as dissolving the corporate entity? You know, to to make sure the company stays all the way dead.
      - tialaramex 1y ago
        I guess my bad for not specifying that it'd need be wicked for the corporation not the humans.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Would be nice to see executions of corporations as punishment Fines. Massive fines. "Corporate death penalty" is a genius invention of corporate lawyers to distract from the punitive effect of massive fines. Fines and license revocable are precedented. They take real money from the corporation and its owners. Corporate death penalties are a legal morass that doesn’t actually punish shareholders, it just cancels a legal entity. If I own an LLC and have a choice between a fine and the LLC being dissolved, I’d almost always opt for the latter. But fines are boring. Corporate death penalty sounds exciting. The anti-corporate folks tend to run with it like catnip, thus dissolving the coalition for holding large companies accountable. (Which, again, a corporate "execution" doesn't do. Nullifying my LLC doesn't actually hurt me, it just creates a little bit of work for my lawyer, and frankly, getting out of a fuckup by poofing the LLC without touching the udnerlying assets is sort of the selling point of incorporation.)
    - thfuran 1y ago
      Corporate fines are a genius invention of corporate execs' personal lawyers to distract from the fact that all corporate malfeasance is conducted by actual people who could be held accountable.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Corporate fines are a genius invention of corporate execs' personal lawyers Ahistoric and orthogonal. Corporate fines and personal sanctions have coëxisted since corporations were a thing. Charter revocations, on the other hand, have almost always followed individual liability, because again, just poofing a corporation doesn't actually do anything to its assets, the part with actual value. (In the English world, corporations frequently came pinned with trade charters. The actual punishment was losing a trade monopoly. Not a legal fiction being dissolved.) Nothing about corporate death penalties or corporate fines prevents personal liability. And neither particularly promotes it, either, particularly if guilt is never acknowledged as part of the proceedings.
    - HWR_14 1y ago
      I'm guessing that dissolving your LLC as a punishment would include the forfeiture of all the associated assets, not distributing them to shareholders.
- parineum 1y ago
  > Only when it comes to rights. "Corporations are people" means a corporation is people, not a corporation is a person. People have rights, whether they are acting through a corporation or not. That's what Citizens United determined. I hope you think about who misled you to thinking that "corporations are people" meant a corporation is a person and trust them a little less.
  - lblume 1y ago
    In most jurisdictions, a corporation is a juridical person[1]. When not explicitly mentioning natural persons, whether a corporation is a "person" is thus ambiguous. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Everyone spewing opinions in this thread so they can get their upvotes from like minded readers is missing the 800lb gorilla. It's not in the state's interest to kill profitable things most of the time except occasionally as a deterrent example. It's the same reason richer people (who pay a lot of taxes, engage in activity spawning yet more taxes, etc) tend to get probation instead of jail. Likewise, the state is happy to kill small(er) businesses. It does this all the time and it doesn't make the news. Whereas with the big ones it just takes its pound of flesh and keeps things running. As long as that incentive mostly remains, the outcomes will mostly remain.
bko 1y ago
> If you want Tesla's behavior to change - and other automakers take notice and not repeat the behavior - then the fine must be meaningful to them. What behavior do you want them to change? Remove FSD from their cars? It's been nearly 10 years since released and over 3bn miles driven. There's one case where someone died while fetching his cell phone. You would think if it was really dangerous, people would be dying in scores. This is obviously targeted and the court system should not be playing favorites or going after political opponents
- thejazzman 1y ago
  - FSD came out in October 2020; I suppose rounding up to 10 puts it nearly 10 years since. It also, literally, doubles the number from its actual value. - There have been a lot more than one incident. This is one court case about one incident. - There are an insane number of accidents reported; does it only matter to you if someone dies? A lot more than one person has died in an accident that involved a vehicle that was equipped with FSD. - Your comment is obviously targeted and disingenuous. There was even a recall over it: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/16/tesla-full-self-driving-can-let-cars-speed-run-stop-signs-and-cause-crashes-feds/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/16/tesla-full-self-driv... So to answer your question of what one might want to come out of it, perhaps another recall where they fix the system or stop making false claims about what it can do.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- helsinkiandrew 1y ago
  > This is obviously targeted and the court system should not be playing favorites or going after political opponents This was a jury trial of a civil case - the family of the deceased took Tesla to court, not an anti-Tesla/Musk court system conspiracy.
- simion314 1y ago
  > It's been nearly 10 years since released and over 3bn miles driven. There's one case where someone died while fetching his cell phone. You would think if it was really dangerous, people would be dying in scores. And how many times did humans had to take over and save themselves and others from Tesla killing or injuring them? Tesla won't tell us this numbers, guess why ? The tech might be safe as a backup driver , but so far you need a human to pay attention to save himself from the car bugs/errors/glitches etc. I really hate this bullshit safety claims pulled from someones ass, it is like me trying to convince you to get operated but an AI doctor by claiming "it is better then the a old and drunk doctor , he only killed a few people when the people supervising it did not payed attention but in the rest was very safe, we can't tell you how many times real doctors had to perform the hard work and our AI doctor only did stitching , those numbers need to be secret, but trust us the human doctors that had to intervene are just there because of the evil laws it could do the full job itself, we would not call it Full competent doctor if it can\t perform fully all expected tasks.
stouset 1y ago
I agree that Tesla should receive punitive damages. And the size of the punitive damages must be enough to discourage bad behavior. I'm not necessarily sure the victim(s) should get all of the punitive damages. $329 million is a gargantuan sum of money; it "feels" wrong to give a corporation-sized punishment to a small group of individuals. I could certainly see some proportion going toward funding regulatory agencies, but I fear the government getting the bulk of punitive damages would set up some perverse incentives. I think in the absence of another alternative, giving it to the victim(s) is probably the best option. But is there an even better possible place to disburse the funds from these types of fines?
- bruce511 1y ago
  >> it "feels" wrong to give a corporation-sized punishment to a small group of individuals This feeling has a name; loss aversion. It's a really interesting human traits. About 66% of people feel bad when someone else does well. The impact of this feeling on behavior (even behavior that is self-harming) is instructive. The concept of "Fairness" comes into play as well. Many people have an expectation that the "world is fair" despite every evidence that it isn't. That results in "everything I don't get is unfair" whereas "everything I get I earned on my own." Someone rlse getting a windfall is thus "unfair".
  - thfuran 1y ago
    That really doesn't sound like loss aversion.
  - stouset 1y ago
    It is definitely not loss aversion. It also has nothing to do with whether or not someone else is getting the money. Handing me nearly half a billion because a parent died would certainty be welcome, but I think it would feel equally as disproportionate and out-of-place.
    - __m 1y ago
      Killed, not just died.
thelastgallon 1y ago
$300M means very little to Tesla. The stock didn't even drop a bit (other than the usual market fluctuations today). Perhaps $4.20B or $6.90B would've been meaningful. Elon notices these numbers.
- cookszn 1y ago
  Not doing what it asks - “keep your hands on the wheel” and “eyes on the road” - and crashing the car is somehow Elon Musks’ fault LOL hn logic. Can’t wait to sue lane assist when I drive drunk and crash!
  - root_axis 1y ago
    It's supposed to stop if objects appear in its path. For sure you're an idiot if you trust Tesla's autopilot, but I think it's reasonable to partially fault Tesla for setting the consumer's expectation that the car stops when obstacles get in the way even if the vehicle isn't being operated exactly as suggested by the manufacturer.
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    Maybe system should sound alarm and slow down immediately when there is no hands on wheel and eyes not on the road. Would have avoided this accident, so it seems Tesla was at fault for not doing that.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    "Somehow?" We're literally discussing a court case where culpability was proven and accepted by a judge.
ornornor 1y ago
To add, this is also punitive for endangering countless other road users that aren’t suing in this particular instance.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ratelimitsteve 1y ago

>I hope we haven't internalized the idea that corporations should be treated the same as people. Only when it comes to rights. When it comes to responsibilities the corporations stop being people and go back to being amorphous, abstract things that are impossible to punish.

dontlaugh 1y ago
Would be nice to see executions of corporations as punishment.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  Perhaps better to achieve symmetry by ceasing to execute humans. You're never going to make executing the wrong corporation as thoroughly wicked as the numerous occasions on which we've executed the wrong human, so you can't make the scores even but you can stop putting more on the total for human misery. Historically it was impractical to permanently warehouse large number of humans, death was more practical = but the US has been doing it for all sorts of crap for decades so that's not a problem here. The US would still have much harsher punishments than Western Europe even without the death penalty, because it routinely uses life-means-life sentences where no matter what you're never seeing the outside again.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    >You're never going to make executing the wrong corporation as thoroughly wicked as the numerous occasions on which we've executed the wrong human What if we garnished 100% of the future wages of all the employees in perpetuity as well as dissolving the corporate entity? You know, to to make sure the company stays all the way dead.
    - tialaramex 1y ago
      I guess my bad for not specifying that it'd need be wicked for the corporation not the humans.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Would be nice to see executions of corporations as punishment Fines. Massive fines. "Corporate death penalty" is a genius invention of corporate lawyers to distract from the punitive effect of massive fines. Fines and license revocable are precedented. They take real money from the corporation and its owners. Corporate death penalties are a legal morass that doesn’t actually punish shareholders, it just cancels a legal entity. If I own an LLC and have a choice between a fine and the LLC being dissolved, I’d almost always opt for the latter. But fines are boring. Corporate death penalty sounds exciting. The anti-corporate folks tend to run with it like catnip, thus dissolving the coalition for holding large companies accountable. (Which, again, a corporate "execution" doesn't do. Nullifying my LLC doesn't actually hurt me, it just creates a little bit of work for my lawyer, and frankly, getting out of a fuckup by poofing the LLC without touching the udnerlying assets is sort of the selling point of incorporation.)
  - thfuran 1y ago
    Corporate fines are a genius invention of corporate execs' personal lawyers to distract from the fact that all corporate malfeasance is conducted by actual people who could be held accountable.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Corporate fines are a genius invention of corporate execs' personal lawyers Ahistoric and orthogonal. Corporate fines and personal sanctions have coëxisted since corporations were a thing. Charter revocations, on the other hand, have almost always followed individual liability, because again, just poofing a corporation doesn't actually do anything to its assets, the part with actual value. (In the English world, corporations frequently came pinned with trade charters. The actual punishment was losing a trade monopoly. Not a legal fiction being dissolved.) Nothing about corporate death penalties or corporate fines prevents personal liability. And neither particularly promotes it, either, particularly if guilt is never acknowledged as part of the proceedings.
  - HWR_14 1y ago
    I'm guessing that dissolving your LLC as a punishment would include the forfeiture of all the associated assets, not distributing them to shareholders.
parineum 1y ago
> Only when it comes to rights. "Corporations are people" means a corporation is people, not a corporation is a person. People have rights, whether they are acting through a corporation or not. That's what Citizens United determined. I hope you think about who misled you to thinking that "corporations are people" meant a corporation is a person and trust them a little less.
- lblume 1y ago
  In most jurisdictions, a corporation is a juridical person[1]. When not explicitly mentioning natural persons, whether a corporation is a "person" is thus ambiguous. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juridical_person
potato3732842 1y ago
Everyone spewing opinions in this thread so they can get their upvotes from like minded readers is missing the 800lb gorilla. It's not in the state's interest to kill profitable things most of the time except occasionally as a deterrent example. It's the same reason richer people (who pay a lot of taxes, engage in activity spawning yet more taxes, etc) tend to get probation instead of jail. Likewise, the state is happy to kill small(er) businesses. It does this all the time and it doesn't make the news. Whereas with the big ones it just takes its pound of flesh and keeps things running. As long as that incentive mostly remains, the outcomes will mostly remain.

bko 1y ago

> If you want Tesla's behavior to change - and other automakers take notice and not repeat the behavior - then the fine must be meaningful to them. What behavior do you want them to change? Remove FSD from their cars? It's been nearly 10 years since released and over 3bn miles driven. There's one case where someone died while fetching his cell phone. You would think if it was really dangerous, people would be dying in scores. This is obviously targeted and the court system should not be playing favorites or going after political opponents

thejazzman 1y ago
- FSD came out in October 2020; I suppose rounding up to 10 puts it nearly 10 years since. It also, literally, doubles the number from its actual value. - There have been a lot more than one incident. This is one court case about one incident. - There are an insane number of accidents reported; does it only matter to you if someone dies? A lot more than one person has died in an accident that involved a vehicle that was equipped with FSD. - Your comment is obviously targeted and disingenuous. There was even a recall over it: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/16/tesla-full-self-driving-can-let-cars-speed-run-stop-signs-and-cause-crashes-feds/ https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/02/16/tesla-full-self-driv... So to answer your question of what one might want to come out of it, perhaps another recall where they fix the system or stop making false claims about what it can do.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
helsinkiandrew 1y ago
> This is obviously targeted and the court system should not be playing favorites or going after political opponents This was a jury trial of a civil case - the family of the deceased took Tesla to court, not an anti-Tesla/Musk court system conspiracy.
simion314 1y ago
> It's been nearly 10 years since released and over 3bn miles driven. There's one case where someone died while fetching his cell phone. You would think if it was really dangerous, people would be dying in scores. And how many times did humans had to take over and save themselves and others from Tesla killing or injuring them? Tesla won't tell us this numbers, guess why ? The tech might be safe as a backup driver , but so far you need a human to pay attention to save himself from the car bugs/errors/glitches etc. I really hate this bullshit safety claims pulled from someones ass, it is like me trying to convince you to get operated but an AI doctor by claiming "it is better then the a old and drunk doctor , he only killed a few people when the people supervising it did not payed attention but in the rest was very safe, we can't tell you how many times real doctors had to perform the hard work and our AI doctor only did stitching , those numbers need to be secret, but trust us the human doctors that had to intervene are just there because of the evil laws it could do the full job itself, we would not call it Full competent doctor if it can\t perform fully all expected tasks.

stouset 1y ago

I agree that Tesla should receive punitive damages. And the size of the punitive damages must be enough to discourage bad behavior. I'm not necessarily sure the victim(s) should get all of the punitive damages. $329 million is a gargantuan sum of money; it "feels" wrong to give a corporation-sized punishment to a small group of individuals. I could certainly see some proportion going toward funding regulatory agencies, but I fear the government getting the bulk of punitive damages would set up some perverse incentives. I think in the absence of another alternative, giving it to the victim(s) is probably the best option. But is there an even better possible place to disburse the funds from these types of fines?

bruce511 1y ago
>> it "feels" wrong to give a corporation-sized punishment to a small group of individuals This feeling has a name; loss aversion. It's a really interesting human traits. About 66% of people feel bad when someone else does well. The impact of this feeling on behavior (even behavior that is self-harming) is instructive. The concept of "Fairness" comes into play as well. Many people have an expectation that the "world is fair" despite every evidence that it isn't. That results in "everything I don't get is unfair" whereas "everything I get I earned on my own." Someone rlse getting a windfall is thus "unfair".
- thfuran 1y ago
  That really doesn't sound like loss aversion.
- stouset 1y ago
  It is definitely not loss aversion. It also has nothing to do with whether or not someone else is getting the money. Handing me nearly half a billion because a parent died would certainty be welcome, but I think it would feel equally as disproportionate and out-of-place.
  - __m 1y ago
    Killed, not just died.

thelastgallon 1y ago

$300M means very little to Tesla. The stock didn't even drop a bit (other than the usual market fluctuations today). Perhaps $4.20B or $6.90B would've been meaningful. Elon notices these numbers.

cookszn 1y ago
Not doing what it asks - “keep your hands on the wheel” and “eyes on the road” - and crashing the car is somehow Elon Musks’ fault LOL hn logic. Can’t wait to sue lane assist when I drive drunk and crash!
- root_axis 1y ago
  It's supposed to stop if objects appear in its path. For sure you're an idiot if you trust Tesla's autopilot, but I think it's reasonable to partially fault Tesla for setting the consumer's expectation that the car stops when obstacles get in the way even if the vehicle isn't being operated exactly as suggested by the manufacturer.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  Maybe system should sound alarm and slow down immediately when there is no hands on wheel and eyes not on the road. Would have avoided this accident, so it seems Tesla was at fault for not doing that.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  "Somehow?" We're literally discussing a court case where culpability was proven and accepted by a judge.

ornornor 1y ago

To add, this is also punitive for endangering countless other road users that aren’t suing in this particular instance.