"Punitive damages" in a search engine of your choice should clear things up.
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Doesn't deserve that much money.
What did you learn about the purpose of punitive damages and how did that impact your reply?
Maybe the party causing the damage deserves to lose that much money.
Or needs to pay that much to change their behavior instead of just filing it under "operating costs".
She doesn't get it, that's not how it works.
The reasons for high dollar amount compensations are usually, at least, threefold:
- Cover the plaintiff's legal fees. Lawyers often get a percentage of the award or settlement and typically are the ones to set the dollar amount being sought. Even if they "just" bill hourly then the plaintiff still has to pay them (win or lose). Often, though not always, lawyers are expensive (especially good ones).
- Actual compensation to the victim
- A deterrent to future violations that led to the lawsuit / encouragement to do better
Edit: That's against companies and large entities, though. I've never understood awards of millions of dollars from regular people who could never in 10 lifetimes pay that amount. Maybe it's just symbolic? I've never really known what happens when Jim Bob who makes $1000/mo on social security gets sued for $10 million and loses.
All you keep responding with is "doesnt deserve that much" without replying to any comment that explains the payout isnt all for the plaintiff but also to ensure the guilty defendant doesnt commit the same offense ever again. Are you just ignoring that aspect or do you have any recommendations for better ways to make sure it would never happen again? So in the example case, do you want the defendant to face the death penalty? Subsequently if your problem only resodes with the plaintiff recieving that much money, who do you propose the punitive damages sum goes to?
But many corporations deserve to lose billions in a single suit.
ITT, OP is about to start complaining about how actual unpopular opinions get downvoted despite not actually engaging in good faith.
Yes because the 'good faith' of engaging in stupid retorts is to basically nod along like a bobblehead going "uh huh, u sure right, fam".
Yeah that's not me, not sorry.
Why is a woman whose child is murdered through corporate malfeasance less deserving of wealth than the CEO whose ability to vacillate gets them a bonus whether the company does good or bad?
Why is she less deserving than some rando who won the birth lottery?
Or, hell, a rando who just won a lottety lottery?
Nobody deserves so much money.
This change would definitely get companies to change their behavior, make it a rounding error in the millionth of a percent region. That will definitely get them to behave differently.
What would be the plan, in your perfect world, to get companies not make the same mistake again? Ideal version would be nice to know, and maybe we can agree on that. But given that we're not in the perfect world, what would you say the way to change company behavior is at this this exact point in time?
That's certainly a hot take. Watch a few legal eagle videos, the justice system in most countries are based on either incarceration or money. There's not much more you can do to punish someone.
Civil suits can't cause someone to go to jail, so literally the only option is owing money. If the perpetrator is wealthy, then it takes a lot of money to punish them. That money goes somewhere, and it's typically the person who brought the suit, otherwise there's no incentive to bring these kinds of lawsuits to court.
So... what's the alternative? Just shrug and say there's no way to resolve this, go about your day?
Doesn't deserve that much money.
So rich people just don't get punished then? If you have enough money so you don't care about fines you can just do whatever you want?