If this is the case, it’s pretty depressing:
It’s a long thread, but the gist of it is that Texas caps punitive damages awards with a formula: 2 X the amount of economic compensation plus $750k.
If there isn’t any economic compensation in the compensatory damages (it seems there were no claimed economic losses, just emotional injury claims), then the maximum punitive damage award is 2 X $0 + $750,000.
Also, it’s against the law to tell the jury about the cap, so as not to influence the jury in their deliberations.
LockerK
2937
I get the spirit of what they’re aiming for, but “this law governs your civic duty, and legally we can’t tell you about it” is crazy to me. And impossible to enforce on a high profile case, I’d imagine.
I imagine if you told the jury that the punitive damages would be limited by the compensatory damages award, the jury would be motivated to raise the compensatory damages award. So keeping it a secret is part of suppressing the overall damages awards, I guess.
Texas has laws designed to limit awards in civil suits? Call me shocked!
Then there is this lol:
Yes, I know, something something correlation something causation.
Timex
2941
I believe that the intent of this law is that the Jury can’t be told to limit their penalty to 750k. The Jury can award a larger punishment, it just doesn’t matter.
No, no – Abbott is the hero here. He looked at the money and said to himself, “I really do not deserve these funds; it was dishonest and the amount is far beyond what I should have been awarded. I will fix things so that no one else as unworthy as myself can benefit from these broken laws!”
You can’t tell the jury, but you can tell the public, right? So someone could conceivably file suit against another person, then take out a bunch of ads and billboards before the trial telling everyone in the state the law?
That’s dumb as shit.
Timex
2945
Texas has no shortage of bad laws.
I guess the batshit GOP has decided that Manchin’s Inflation Reduction Act is actually a sinister plot to build a secret police force hidden in the Internal Revenue Service?
Menzo
2947
That’s just the way they’re choosing to scare people who won’t see their taxes go up and don’t have to worry about being audited.
ShivaX
2948
If you know the law exists, you wont be on a jury.
Dejin
2950
Los Angeles Times Legal Columnist
ShivaX
2951
It’s gonna be $750k because Texas sucks.
Timex
2952
Some folks are saying that the punitive cap doesn’t apply to this, because of reasons.
Djscman
2953
I don’t suppose that could result in up to $44 million total, but each individual family member couldn’t collect more than $750k each? Like some kind of class action thing?
(Not a lawyer, obviously)
As Phil Sheridan once said (and Sheridan was, generally, a nasty piece of work, but in this case, spot on): “If I owned both Hell and Texas, I’d live in Hell, and rent out Texas.”
