Foreign Aviation Tragedies, Thoughts on Compensation
George's Point of View
Lives have value. It doesn’t matter if a man makes $10,000 a day, or 10 cents. If he dies in a plane crash, he’s irreplaceable. Maybe his boss can put a dollar figure on what it would cost him to lose that worker; maybe his banker can come up a specific value to subtract from the family’s credit rating.
But to his wife
to his son
to his daughter
to his parents
to his friends
to all those his life touched daily—
he’s irreplaceable.
His loss leaves a hole in a family that money can never fill.
And then the attorneys for insurance companies will “try” to get by with compensation offers that are equal amounts for each passenger, that in some cases, equal to “peanuts” — I don’t see that too much, but ‘they’ try, especially if the laws in the country have established maximum low-values for the loss of life in aviation accidents. Even with Warsaw and Montreal the compensation I’ve seen is seldom governed by the caps provided for in these treaties.
Instead, the compensation is based on the profile of the decedent. Age, Occupation, Family, etc. With this said, each seat on that plane is occupied by an individual and the family of the victim should be compensated accordingly, and in addition, the family should be paid non-pecuniary damages for pain and suffering, etc. In a perfect case, that’s how it works.
Whether he makes $10,000 a day, or 10 cents will not affect a man’s pain and suffering. In fact, his pain may be worse, knowing his ten cents is all that lies between his family and ruin.
PEANUTS is not acceptable.
Originally posted by George Hatcher on Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 at 12:17 am