The case, which came from Monroe County, was called Thorn vs. Mercy Memorial, and had to do with the death of a woman in a medical malpractice case. The woman, Laurie Ann Greene, was a Monroe County mom, who bled to death during a Caesarian section.
Michigan makes a big distinction between damages you can’t put a dollar value on, such as anguish and suffering, and damages you can easily quantify, like property damage.
According to the law in this state, you are supposed to be able to collect no more than $500,000 for so-called non-economic damages. So if you murder my wife and kids and burn all the pictures I have of my dead parents, half a million is the maximum I could possibly collect. On the other hand, let’s say I have a warehouse that holds $5 million worth of hamster food, which I intended to sell retail.
You destroy my rodent pellets, accidentally or on purpose, and you owe me $5 million or possibly more, provided I can prove in court that you did it. So - we allow you to collect unlimited damages on property, and we set tight restrictions on the worth of a wife or a mother’s love. This logic always makes me think of a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, in which he observed that our Gross National Product measures the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Well, yesterday something happened to change this. Laurie Ann Greene’s family hired an economics expert who calculated that the loss of her services and a parent were worth $225 a day.
That was the value, the expert said, of services including “physical care for children, reading and talking to and with children,“ going to their school events, cooking dinner and “dropping off, picking up, and waiting for children.”
Nobody questions the immense value of what a mother does, but until now, those are all services that were felt to be intangible or non-economic. And that’s the way the Monroe Circuit Court ruled. But the Court of Appeals ruled differently. It said that the services that a mom provides indeed have an economic value, and reinstated an award of $1.4 million to the estate of Laurie Ann Greene, much of it to cover the loss of her services as a mom.
I thought the Michigan Supreme Court would overrule that ruling. But to my surprise, it did not. Three conservative justices dissented vigorously. Justice Robert Young moaned that this “devalues the relationship that family members share with another.”
But even he agreed that the majority’s decision means that this ruling is now binding on other courts.
So moms, guess what. For the first time, we have an official value on what running after the kids is worth: $225 a day. Some men are going to be horrified, but based on what little I know about it ...
It isn’t nearly enough.
Hopefully this ruling will lead to the defeat of tort reform in the state..The basis for imposing a cap on general damages( pain & suffering) was an attempt to control run away verdicts and excessive insurance premiums according to insurance carriers and thier lobby..
If the courts can provide relief in this fashion for plaintiffs and create a fissure in the tort reform than our courts can assist city residents whose worth is under attack by redlining of auto and homeowners insurance rates and suits where the damages awarded for Black plaintiffs have always been less than for white plaintiffs in medical malpractice , product liability and other related personal injury tort suits..
Posted by: Thrasher | July 09, 2009 at 03:53 PM
Wonderful. Just what Michigan needs. Another way to make business more expensive for hospitals, businesses and everyone who, directly or indirectly, pays for insurance. Which is everyone.
By the way, Jack Lessenberry is out of his tiny, badly-informed mind when he suggests that a damages cap applies to an intentional act like "murder" of a wife and kids. It doesn't; and in fact Michigan allows for not only compensatory damages in such a case; it is one of the kinds of cases in which Michigan allows for a class of damages called "exemplary" damages. A mild form of the punitive damages that we hear about in other legal-hell jurisdictions.
Wha we see here is the beginnings of the "Hathaway" court. Following the election, last fall, of the trial lawyer's nominee, Diane Marie Hathaway, fresh from Michigan's own legal hell, the Wayne County Circuit Court. Hathaway narrowly beat incumbent Chief Justice Cliff Taylor after Geoff Fieger & Co. bankrolled the adverstisement containing the the lie -- the absolute lie -- that Taylor had been "the sleeping judge" on the bench in a case that overturned one of Fieger's jackpot verdicts.
In 2010, there will be two Michigan Supreme Court Justices up for reelection. One is the talented, respected African-American, Justice Robert Young. The other is the crackpot, lunatic bag-lady Betty Weaver. They are both Republicans. At least Betty Weaver says she is a Republican. She was nominated by the Republican Party the last time she ran, which was also aroung the time that she said she might quit, before she decided that she wouldn't quit and then... Oh well.
There is one big difference between Robert Young and Betty Weaver. Young will be proudly, happily renominated by his party for another term. Weaver not only will not be nominated; her invitation to the convention will get lost in the mail.
The depravity of the Michigan Democratic Committee's campaign against Chief Justice Taylor in the last election will not soon be forgotten. I hope and expect scorched earth to accompany the next Supreme Court election. The Democrats will have richly earned it.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2009 at 02:05 AM
Anonymous,
Why did you point Robert Young's race and not Betty Weaver??
It is some automatic reflex of how you think or it some political agenda at play??
The Wayne County Circuit reflects the dynamics of the populace perhaps your venom towards it reflects why you pointed out Robert's racial background and not Betty's..
Please explain your motives in playing this "race card"..
Posted by: Thrasher | July 10, 2009 at 08:20 AM
"Race card"?
Thrasher, you truly are one of the most deranged, racialist monomaniacs in a metropolitan region that has its share of them.
Young's race is not a big deal to me. Nor is the gender of Justices Corrigan, Weaver and Hathaway, and Chief Justice Hathaway. For those voters who think it's important that women and minorities fill places on the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court (and I'm not one of those -- I prefer my Justices based upon their philosophy, not their color or gender); for those voters, they can be assured that there is already a majority of women justices on the court, and that there is at least one African-American (Justice Young) on the court.
If anyone supports a candidate for elective office simply because that candidate shares their raqcial background (can you imagine anyone doing that?!?), then by all means, if that information helps a justice whom I support philosophically, then by all means, let's get that information out, I say.
Republicans are more or less bludgeoned every day with government's "responsibilities to women and minorities." The personal journeys and social histories of candidates like Barack Obama and nominees like Judge Sotomayor are the dialy grist of the national media. It's just funny, how the national media has a different frame of reference when the Judge's name is Clarence Thomas, or the nominee's name is Miguel Estrada, or the woman is named Sarah Palin.
So, I get your message, Thrasher; Don't dare mention race or gender if you are a Republican. You can only mention gender or race if you are a liberal Democrat. Or one of the liberal Democrats' paymasters, like Geoffrey Fieger (escaped conviction) or Dickie Scruggs (now in federal prison) or Bill Lerach (still in federal prison) or Melvyn Weiss (now sentenced, I think).
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2009 at 09:51 AM
Just to be clear, Scruggs is serving 5 to 7 years, in part for an attempt to bribe a judge, and I'm not sure which prison he's currently assigned to.
Lerach is in a federal prison in Arizona, and Weiss is serving his sentence in West Virginia.
Your trial bar at work.
Fieger, of course, who admitted to laundering campaign contributions to the 2000 primary campaign of John Edwards (you remember John Edwards) through his law office, somehow avoided a conviction in federal court in Detroit. I can't imagine how the jury reached that conclusion, but it may have been because the trial judge essentially instructed the jury that Feiger had toknow that what he was doing was wrong.
I can only imagine how relieved Mercy Hospital of Monroe and its staff would have been if they had been judged on a standard of, "you are not liable unless you actually knew what you were doing was wrong." But that wasn't the standard. Mercy is where sick and dying people go every day. And Mercy undertakes the duty to treat them, within the standard of care. Some will most assuredly continue to get sick and die despite Mercy's best efforts. And in some of those cases, Mercy will get sued no matter what.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Anon,
So in all those words you posted again why did you post about Robert's race and not Betty's...It is a simple question.
Your personal venom and attack on me is not a surprise given intellectual cowards like you can attack me with venom hiding behind a pc..
Your deflection into some shallow rants about partisan politics is sad and reveals again your shallow depth and ethics..
You injected the 'race card' not deal with the litter you created..Step up be accountible for your 'race card' injection..Blaming me..lol,lol,lol
real white of ya..
Posted by: Thrasher | July 10, 2009 at 11:50 AM
Thrasher - It does not matter to me what race any of the Michigan Supreme Court Justices are. Got it? I'll say again; it does not matter to me what race any of the Michigan Supreme Court Justices are.
I mentioned Justice Young's race, because he will be involved in a reelectoin campaign next year, and some people might consider his race in that context. Not me, but some others might. I'll be supporting Justice Young and I'll be voting for him. Some kinda racist I am! Personally, I hope Justice Young's race helps him get reelected, but that's just me. I've already made it clear; I am prejudiced. I am prejudiced against judges whose campaigns are paid for by the trial lawyers. And I am profoundly prejudiced in favor of Justice Young, who just happens to be an African-American. But my prejudice in favor of Justice Young is based upon his integrity, his wisdom and his judicial philosophy.
Thrasher, you've once again taken the race debate into yet another Alice-in-Wonderland dimension. Which of course is nothing new for you. This time, I am simply not taking your malignant crap without a response.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2009 at 12:18 PM
Anon,
Yes you are and as an intellectual coward that you are hiding behind a pc to assualt me with your personal racist venom..I am going to slamm you again..
WHY DID YOU INSERT ROBERT'S RACE INTO YOUR POST AND NOT BETTY"S????
Your denials and excuses are as cowardly and shallow as your principles and ethics for hiding behind a pc and posting under an alias..
You are a nobody when you hide behind an alias and spit on people with your venomm.
Your threats mean nothing cause you are an coward..
NOW I called you out WHY DID YOU INSERT ROBERT'S RACE and NOT BETTY"S???????????????
Posted by: Thrasher | July 10, 2009 at 03:40 PM
Betty Weaver is a white woman from Glen Arbor. There. Now we've done it. We've crossed the final Rubicon of racial relations, haven't we?
And, for the record, again, I like Justice Robert Young and will be enthusiastically supporting him for reelection.
I'd mention that I won't be supporting any reeleciton bid for Justice Weaver, but I don't think she'll be nominated (unless as a disgruntled turncoat to the Democrats), and I'd be surprised if she undertook the kind of campaign we'll be seeing in 2010.
So her race hasn't much to do with anything. But I'll talk about it just for the purpose of showing you up as the racial kook that we've all come to know at Jack Lessenberry's blog.
This is a first for me, by the way. Being called a racist for having said:
1) I don't care for race as an electoral criterion, in any case, but:
2) In this case I am supporting the African-American, and I hope everyone else will, because he is a highly competent, highly principled public servant and an outstanding jurist.
Welcome the Greg Thrasher World of "Racial Grievances No Matter How Absurd."
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2009 at 05:02 PM
Anon,
"Being called a racist for having said"
Who called you a racist??? There is nothing in my posts which I posted or called you a racist!!. I labeled your verbaige and posts as racist venom but unlike you I did not call you a racist. Your personal assaults on me has you following over yourself with please and excuses becuase I have exposed you for all to see..A self-rightous hypocrite..
You never had any credibility nor principles in here becuase you are a coward for posting under an alias..yet for you now to invent posts and verbaige out of the air so you can post standard boilerplate rants again reveals for all to observe how tragic and sad you are...
You are pathetic really... You even hiding behind your pc as an intellectual coward attacking me with your viule venom you are truly a tragic person..
Now leave me alone and do not ever attack me again for your unethical values and principles
Posted by: Thrasher | July 10, 2009 at 05:46 PM
Thanks for the news on your wireless device, Greg. I had thought that you were posting through the mind-control satellites that are linked to the antennae that government agents implanted into your fillings while you slept.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 11, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Anon,
I posted that information so intellectual cowards like you would always be on the look out for me 24/7 any & everywhere..lol
Posted by: Thrasher | July 11, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Always wonderful when another person calls Trasher out. He's just a racist pig-arrogant, pathetic and desparately needs to be put out of his misery. Spewing racist arrows at the drop of a hat. An intellectual lilliputin with no conscience.
Thank you anon-your conclusions regarding Trasher are right on the money. Right On Brother!
Posted by: Augustas Woodward | July 11, 2009 at 03:36 PM
Augustas not much has changed you still obessed with me at last count 98% of your posts are a reaction to my posts..
"desparately needs to be put out of his misery.." is that a threat?? I never, never, never, never,never fear the venom and threats of intellectual cowards...
BTW it is THRASHER not Trasher..Right on Brother..lol,lol,lol
Posted by: Thrasher | July 12, 2009 at 10:13 AM