the perfect plaintiff 1

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1. Among the damages that can be awarded to a successful plaintiff are compensatory, consequential and punitive. Briefly define each.

2. In the clip below from the movie A Civil Action the narrator describes the “perfect plaintiff.” Clearly his view, as troubling as it sounds, is in the context of the amount of damages potentially awarded by a jury. What reasoning might support his claim that a deceased child is worth less than a 40-year-old male at the height of his earning potential?

Link (Links to an external site.)

3. Also controversial is the awarding of high-dollar punitive damages. In one case a jury awarded $75 million in punitive damages to a man who blamed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based weed killer, Roundup, for his cancer. A judge reduced the punitive damages to $20 million. Was $75 million too much? How about $20 million? Why do you think the award was reduced? Should it have been reduced? Explain.

Here’s a link to a Round Up article: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-slashes-punitive-damages-award-by-50-million-in-roundup-cancer-case/

Instructions

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