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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (44451)7/28/2010 6:57:46 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 71588
 
Leaves those damaged in excess of the cap's limits dangling alone in the wind and forced to fight against the federal damages cap in court under their own steam

If the federal government finds that safety regs where violated the cap doesn't apply. They won't have to fight it in court under their own steam under such a circumstance, which many think is likely in this case. And in fact is really likely in any very large spill since there are so many regulations to potentially violate that its reasonable likely at least one was violated, even if it was only a technical violation, and the spill wasn't caused by it.

Also its not like in the absence of a cap that the courts are always going to impose the right compensation, or even that there is any objective easy way for us to determine what is the right compensation. If our legal culture was more reasonable in this area, I would perhaps oppose caps in general, but I don't because the faults of the legal system make them a practical if imperfect response. (BTW that's a general statement about liability caps, not a statement about this specific cap, which is too leaky to do much good so its probably useless, and too low so when it doesn't leak and become useless its potentially harmful).
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