No Enjoyment of Life

It must be a week or three since Norm Pattis blogged this, but I’ve been meaning to say something, and it might as well be now.

Norm starts with a hypothetical call about a wrongful death suit from a potential client:

He had bronchitis. The doctors failed to diagnose it on time. As a result, he died; his heart just gave out. The decedent was only 47 years old. You quickly calculate loss of earning potential for the twenty or so years he could have worked.

What did do for work, you ask? He didn’t work. Why is that you ask. He couldn’t, you see he was mentally, er, challenged. Your heart sinks. Death is tragic, but death without ascertainable economic loss is a tragedy only a plaintiff’s lawyer can fully appreciate.

But he so loved life, the caller tells you. Each time there was a fire in the neighborhood, he would run to the scene and direct traffic. You are tempted, but still there is nagging doubt. How much can such a case be worth?

It turns out this case is actually real (but not one of Norm’s) and it’s just been decided:

A Connecticut jury just answered, awarding the estate of the decedent in this case $3.5 million for the loss of enjoyment of life. No part of the verdict reflected damages for economic loss…

Norm doesn’t like that:

Forgive my cynicism, but the verdict seems like a triumph of politically correct sympathy over common sense. The decedent has lost the ability to enjoy life…But tell me, reader, how do you compensate a man for a life not lived? It just can’t be done.

I do not mean to suggest that a mentally handicapped person can’t enjoy life. But this verdict simply makes no sense. … [P]erhaps it’s time to revisit whether it makes sense to provide compensation for the loss of enjoyment of life. The simple fact is a death cannot be undone, even by creative lawyers playing on the heartstrings of a jury.

I’m apalled beyond words.

I know our legal system tends to calculate civil damages for a death based on lost earning potential, but until now I didn’t think about how awful that is. Norm’s stark summary makes me feel a gut-level revulsion that’s hard to describe.

“Loss of enjoyment of life” does matter. It’s the only thing that matters.

The whole point of working for a living is to earn money, and the whole point of earning money is to buy goods and services for consumption. And the whole point of consumption is to improve the quality of your life. The loss of income is only important because it reduces your ability to enjoy life.

What Norm’s concerned about, I think, is that “enjoyment of life” is so subjective that the courts will drift away from any sort of predicatable standard for calculating it. Lawyers will be putting on grand shows with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. That will make a mess of our civil courts. Our legal system works better when there are bright lines, clear precedents, and well-defined procedures.

Norm’s a very skilled lawyer, so I’m sure his prediction of chaos is correct. I don’t doubt it for a minute.

However, just because something is hard to measure and quantify doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Enjoyment of life is real, and it’s important.

I have very little experience at civil litigation and wrongful death (thankfully). Perhaps our legal system works it all out in the end. Still, I can’t help but think that enjoyment of life is too important to ignore without some sort of dire consequences.

Given the principles this country was founded on, can it really be right to ignore the pursuit of happiness?