But on Friday morning the jurors heard testimony about Jones’ wealth from an economist, Bernard Pettingill, Jr., who estimated Jones has a net worth of between $135 million and $270 million.
There’s some money in those right wing grifting hills
It is trivially easy to ship money to offshore trusts, completely outside US jurisdiction. This asshole will be rich and comfortable until he dies.
Unless he ends up in
(doubtful but one can dream)
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We should normalize ostracizing any reporter or outlet who parrots “jury awards xyz person $xx million” types of headlines.
They’re almost always wrong, lead to harassment and hatred of the victim, serve right wing talking points, and are lazy ways of getting clicks. It’s exactly the kind of thing journalism thinks itself is firmly above.
AFAIK juries are specifically not told about statutory limits on compensation and as such the jury awards are very often totally meaningless. And even when not meaningless often appealed and slow rolled to the point of destroying the lives of the people who need the money.
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The headline will read that Defendant X gets “25 years in prison” when he really may serve far less. That’s the system’s fault. Not the reporter’s. Headlines are headlines. They generally try to give better explanations within the stories. To try to do it in the headline would lead to really tiny headlines.
I’ve found that the insanely high billing rates are kind of like the uninsured price at a hospital. Sure some people pay them but most don’t. Large corporate clients often negotiate bills down or get flat fees or whatever.
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it’s the opposite in Canada where I’ve been to the dentist and they asked if I had dental insurance through work and gave me 20% off for not having it
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This is where we are at! Lawmakers lobbying industry for not being anti-science and insane enough. The Republican Party is literally the worlds most dangerous terrorist organization.
https://twitter.com/carlzimmer/status/1555891068788527105?s=21&t=-enPBFCSZ7MBfHjQqBwR-Q
That article is nuts, just shamelessly blackmailing these companies with threats of retaliation when they regain power. Imagine funding these campaigns for people like Tommy fucking Tubbervillr to be a US Senator and getting berated anyway.
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Not really buying it.
This story, for instance:
https://amp.star-telegram.com/news/local/article260155335.html
…doesn’t have a peep about how non-economic malpractice damages are limited to $250,000 as a result of Ted Cruz and co. It gives the impression people are still getting rich when doctors mess up, when in reality that is a thing of the past, and leads to a lot more support for tort reform, blaming medical costs on frivolous lawsuits, etc. It’s toxic all the way around.
The real headline/story would perhaps be that a jury awards a victim 30x the malpractice cap passed by Republicans, but I’m just spitballing here.
(Disclaimer: I don’t have a thorough understanding of Texas malpractice caps or this case. But, that’s sorta the job of the news article to clarify, right?)
Ya. This is where the capitalist system will, funnily enough, save us as the people with the actual power here are investors.
I personally know highly placed people in nearly every major oil and gas company you can think of and 100% of them are spending a lot of time and money on ESG work, investing in green tech and trying to position themselves for a future decarbonized world. Contrary to some popular belief they mostly all accept climate change but it actually doesn’t matter much because the investment landscape has become hostile to companies not taking ESG seriously. Most large funds refuse to invest if ESG metrics are not hitting annual targets.
The GOP can be as insane as they want but if the huge investment funds continue to put pressure on ESG then these companies will continue to decarbonize.
I would add that “doing ESG” isn’t just purely defensive for energy companies. A lot of investors are enthusiastic about giving capital to energy companies that show that they will use the investments to reduce carbon emissions. The thing is that most large institutional investors don’t really want to divest from oil and gas, their optimal outcome is investing in profitable oil and gas and still being able to claim a Big Green Checkmark for their ESG initiatives. The capital is there.
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Anybody else find it impossible not to carefully study all the tabs and bookmarks here?
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I think the presumption is that reporters are all-knowing about all things. They’re trying to write factual stories under deadline pressure. Maybe somebody with more time can look into all the nuances and ambiguities and do a feature on it. Just saying that the beat and general assignment reporters do okay under the circumstances. Most get paid peanuts to write for companies on the verge of bankruptcy, and we want to boycott them? What would we get then?
Journalism should try to rid its field of horrible practices, and “jury awards $xx MM to victim” is one of the most easily identified horrible practices.
Maybe, spend 30 minutes learning about obvious tort limitations? I’m sorry, but basically doxxing randos who a lot of people interpret having just won the lottery through their lawsuit is really not good practice, and transparently just exists because it gets those sweet sweet clicks.
Journalism should be above it.
No, or else the jury will be biased to think a particular number is normal or whatever, rather than only hearing the merits of the case in a vacuum.
Like in the infamous McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit the initial jury award was $2.7 million in punitive damages, but lowered to $640k by the judge (I believe based on a statutory limit).
But the $2.7 million headline is what fueled a generation of tort reform sentiment.
Shit is bleak.
State Representative Gary Click—a pastor at the Fremont Baptist Temple and a Republican who serves the Sandusky area—has proposed a “Personhood Act,” which would prohibit any interference with embryonic development from the moment of conception, unless the mother’s life is endangered. If the bill passes, it could outlaw many kinds of contraception, not to mention various practices commonly used during in-vitro fertilization. In an e-mail, Click told me that “the ultimate question that needs to be answered” is “When does life begin?” He added, “I believe the answer to that question is self-evident.” Click is a graduate of an unaccredited Christian school in Michigan, Midwestern Baptist College, whose Web site says that “civil government is of divine appointment” and must be obeyed “except in things opposed to ‘the will of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ”
Click acknowledged that the story of the ten-year-old rape victim is discomfiting, adding that “we all have a visceral reaction” to such a scenario, “regardless of one’s political leaning.” But the news had not made him question his position; rather, he questioned the girl’s story, calling it “suspicious,” and noting that the incident “fit too neatly” with the pro-choice agenda. (According to law-enforcement authorities, a twenty-seven-year-old Ohio man confessed to twice raping the girl when she was nine.
Of the 7,383 people who served in state legislatures in the 2021-22 session, eight hundred and seventy-five had joined far-right Facebook groups. (All but three were Republicans.)
https://twitter.com/sltrib/status/1555682162074083329?s=20&t=BbgFx16OW9d5900LO6VJQQ
…makes stridently pro-America, pro-gun, pro-Trump shirts, hats and apparel.
Sure, they sell the standard “Let’s Go Brandon” tees. Who doesn’t?
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