A Good Precedent

Posted on December 21, 2002 in Citizenship Pointers

The Ohio State Supreme Court handed down a decision that I liked. One Ethel Darlinger tried unsuccessfully to get her insuror, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, to pay for her expensive chemotherapy treatments. It dallied, delayed, and ultimately refused. The day following her funeral, her husband received the negative reply to their last appeal.

$32 million dollars — the largest award the Supreme Court had ever approved — was the result. They went one step further, however: noting that the purpose of punitive damages was to punish wrong doing, not enrich the successful plaintiffs, they set aside $20 million or so as a cancer research fund. Robert Darlinger still gets $10 million as his share. He will be able to live comfortably, Anthem will get it’s butt kicked, and other cancer patients may get some relief from the research that will be conducted with the money.

I don’t know if Ohio law allows punitive damages to be so parceled, but if someone in California launched an initiative which would empower juries to grant such awards after the reasonable medical and punitive awards to the plaintiffs are made, I’d vote for it. It would silence right wing whiners who don’t like that corporations should show some responsibility for their actions.