juries gone wild #1,467,598,934

This just in...yet another jury hangs a guy out to dry by exploiting the loophole of "pain and suffering". Far be it from me to jump to the defense of big corporations and rich people, especially rich people with attitudes, but the only reasonable conclusion to that bullbleep on the other side of the link is that Allen Iverson got reamed. You can dislike AI all you want, and for a lot of good reasons, but injustice is injustice.

Back in 2005, a couple of dudes wouldn't vacate the VIP section of a nightclub (big surprise that one of those crime inducers is involved) for Iverson and his homies, so a couple of AI's bodyguards dispensed some street justice and beat the squatters down. Iverson says he didn't see the fight, and one of the two bodyguards wasn't actually working for Iverson that night but went ahead and practiced some of his bodyguard skills anyway. Both of the receiving-end guys sued, and one was just awarded $260k of Iverson's money. Read the full article for the full scoop.

There are so many things wrong with that. For one, only $10k of that was for medical bills. Granted, those are some whopping medical bills for a scuffle and show that the guy took some damage, but two hundred fifty thousand dollars for pain and suffering? Give me a freaking break. Nobody's "pain and suffering" is worth a penny, regardless of who the victim is or how much money the defendant has at his disposal. Lost wages that can be clearly documented are different, as are other real losses like property damage or, of course, medical bills. But the idea that one can attach a monetary figure to anguish and discomfort is utterly absurd. And yet it works in a courtroom. Yay, go American legal system!

Even more scary is the fact that Iverson was held directly liable for something his bodyguards did on their own. The verdict wasn't that AI told them to do what they did, or that he encouraged men in his entourage to be violent, or even that he snapped and contributed to the trouble by throwing a temper tantrum. Maybe all of that happened, maybe it didn't -- my point is that none of those were cited as reasons to hold AI responsible. Quoth the article:

The lawsuit claimed Iverson was responsible for the brawl because he failed to properly supervise Kane and Williams -- but it did not claim he took part in the fight...

Jury foreman Dave Peterson said "there was no question" that Iverson was negligent in failing to control Kane that night.

That's right, he has to pay up because he failed to properly supervise and control his hirelings. Holy crap. That borders on terrifying and is based on terribly open-ended logic. To be more specific, what the jury is saying is, an employer, supervisor, foreman, etc. can be held responsible for what those under his direct or indirect command do regardless of how much he contributes to or tries to prevent the trouble. That, folks, is total bullbleep.

Using the same reasoning, my boss or employer could be held responsible if I go ballistic in the office and hurt people, assault someone on company premises after hours, or otherwise cause huge trouble by acting stupid. So if one person chooses on his own to do something egregious, those above him are somehow accountable because...they should have prevented the incident? They should have been able to detect it would happen and gotten rid of the guy? They should have used their 20/20 foresight and had barriers in place to prevent it? I mean, how does this work? What that line of reasoning implies is that while your employee is on the job, you are expected to have absolute and total control over everything he says and does. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Once again, I present to you, in all its glory...the American legal system.

This verdict was also predictable in at least one way. As with any case involving someone or some entity with big money, there is the ever-present desire among the less fortunate to "stick it to 'em" and "teach 'em a lesson" by robbing crazy amounts of money for a questionable offense that is minor at worst. Seriously, if I were the defendant, would that scrub have gotten $250k? I think not. But, since it's AI we're talking about, and "standards" of fairness and justice are completely fluid and dependent upon the names in play, suddenly such a verdict becomes acceptable and even honorable. The plaintiff's lawyer even said it himself:

Godfrey's lawyer, Gregory Lattimer, urged jurors Monday to award punitive damages, saying the only way to send a message to Iverson was through his wallet. Jurors were told before their deliberations that Iverson makes $23 million each year.

Thankfully punitive damages weren't awarded -- not that anyone should think he didn't use the same approach to "argue" for pain and suffering compensation. But one must wonder: What does the difference between $23 thousand and $23 million have to do with universal standards of justice? Anything? Oh, I'm sorry, I had a brain lapse for a second there and mistakenly assumed that such things matter in our courts of law. But we at least have to give that pond scum lawyer credit for something: instead of wasting his time on rational arguments grounded in relevant facts and logic, he showed a good grasp of how Joe American thinks by going straight for the emotion-grabbing bullcrap that has a solid track record in our court system.

Such crap. And quite scary really when you realize that this same sort of thing could easily happen to everyday folks without huge money or name recognition. This seems to me to be a good reason to (1) not become a landlord unless I can stack the deck overwhelmingly in my favor somehow, (2) never spend any one-on-one time with any less-than-absolutely-trustworthy woman in any work-related situation and thus leave myself wide open to a trumped-up harassment charge, or (3) do any similarly fair and acceptable thing that could be trampled on by the manipulative ploys of bands of idiots, of which there are plenty these days.

Finally, let me throw the bullbleep flag on some stuff in the article I didn't get around to mentioning. Observe the following quotes and tell me if you think any of them are not ridiculous in their own way. Of course, I can't resist adding my own thoughts.

"[Iverson] said the two men suing him were merely trying to cash in on his fame and fortune." [And, for one of the few times in his life, AI is actually right.]

"Iverson lawyer Alan Milstein also said the NBA player's absence from the trial was not a reflection of his opinion of the court case, an argument frequently made by the plaintiffs." [I guess they figured Iverson had nothing better to do than go hang out in a courtroom where he couldn't say anything and would have otherwise gotten a report from his much more knowledgeable lawyer anyway.]

"'For me it was never about the money,' [the plaintiff] said. 'It's always been about holding them accountable.'" [Uh, that lie deserves three bullbleep flags.]

"'The fact he was a superstar was really not something we could consider as a factor,' [the jury foreman] said." [That one too.]

Anyone with more than a shred of confidence in today's comic relief of a judicial system, please raise your hand. Anyone...? This country needs some good lawyers, dammit. (Yeah, of course that's a hint.) Heck, at this point, just one would do. Gotta start somewhere.

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* Was recently talking to a friend about such issues, and that crap is for real. (He's not caught in it, thankfully, but it's easy to look at seemingly normal situations and see how it's pretty much random fire on a battlefield -- not crap you can do at times except hope you don't catch a stray bullet. One can't help but be vigilant of what settings he puts himself in.) That's actually really damn scary when you think about how twisted the system is and how susceptible any average Joe Worker like any guy is to a claim that would inevitably go unquestioned and unchallenged. Um, down with the western employment system. [Cartman voice] Screw you guys, I'm going elsewhere.