Yeah, Right, Whatever

... is evidently $24,000,000.

A Texas jury found pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. liable Friday for the death of a man who took the once-popular painkiller Vioxx, awarding his widow $253.4 million in damages in the first of thousands of lawsuits pending across the country....The jury awarded $450,000 in economic damages for Robert Ernst's lost pay, $24 million for mental anguish and loss of companionship and $229 million in punitive damages.

Granted, those numbers will drop because of Texas law (the widow will get no more than $26.1 million). But, according to this jury, Ernst's life was worth $24 million (because that was the "loss of companionship and mental anguish amount- that's the dollar amount on his widow's pain). I hadn't realized you could put a price tag on pain, on suffering... on life.

Let me make my position clear. If a company is guilty of intentional negligence, then they should be sued. For damages, and yes, for pain and suffering. If they did wrong, they should be held accountable. So, I guess I'm ok with the $26.1 million. I just know that no amount of money will bring her husband back. (No, I have NO idea how I would react in this situation. I can only guess.)

My problem is with juries who have a "we'll show them!" mentality. $229 million in punative damages? They want to punish people (the stockholders) who had nothing to do with the decisions that were made. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

TORT reform... it's a beautiful thing...