Susan Poser

Measuring Damages for Lost Enjoyment of Life: The View from the Bench and the Jury Box

Civil jury instructions are inconsistent in defining what constitutes noneconomic damages, which may include pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life (LEL), among other injury sequelae. This inconsistency has been manifested recently in court decisions that have considered whether LEL should be treated as a separate element of noneconomic damages, distinct from pain and suffering. This paper reviews the case law on this issue and also describes a jury simulation experiment. Mock jurors awarded damages after they received instructions on noneconomic damages in which LEL was (1) not identified as a distinct element of damages; (2) defined as an element of damages distinct from pain and suffering, but participants awarded a single amount for noneconomic damages; or (3) defined as a distinct element of damages, and participants awarded separate amounts for LEL and pain and suffering. Instructions about LEL resulted in larger awards, but only when mock jurors also made a separate award for that element of damages.

A model academic ethics and integrity policy for computer science departments

For decades, US universities and colleges have had policies pertaining to the conduct of their students at the institutional level. These policies are referred to as Academic Integrity Policies or Codes of Conduct. The Code of Ethics, instituted by Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) has been the standard for the computing sciences profession for over 15 years. However, the traditional institution-wide academic integrity policies have not adapted to the complexities that arose from rapid progress in information technology (IT) and thus either fail to address or are in conflict with the nature of problems in computer science education. In this paper, we propose a model for development and implementation of an academic ethics policy (ethics is a broader concept that includes integrity) that addresses the challenges imposed by information technology vis-á-vis the best modern teaching practices in computer sciences and engineering. Implementing policies that are more in line with the methods of industry and compatible with newer educational pedagogies should make the whole educational environment more engaging to students.

Damages as Metaphor: A Commentary

It was fortuitous that as I sat down to write this commentary on the last two chapters, news broke of the latest Supreme Court case on punitive damages— Phillip Morris v. Williams. What better way to introduce a chapter about how juries determine punitive damages than with perhaps the most convoluted Supreme Court analysis on the subject to date. The Oregon jury in Williams found that cigarette smoking caused the death of the plaintiff, Jesse Williams, and that Phillip Morris was negligent and engaged in deceit in leading Williams to believe that it was safe to smoke. The jury awarded

Perceptions of Procedural and Distributive Justice in the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

821,000 in compensatory damages (of which approximately

Termination of Desegregation Decrees and the Elusive Meaning of Unitary Status

800,000 was for noneconomic harm) to Jesse Williams’ estate, and

Main Street Multidisciplinary Practice Firms: Laboratories for the Future

79.5 million in punitive damages. The issue before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether the Oregon jury, in assessing punitive damages, had sought to punish Phillip Morris for harm caused to other smokers apart from Mr. Williams, the plaintiff. In a 5–4 majority opinion by Justice Breyer, the Court stated that conduct that risks harm to many is likely more reprehensible than conduct that risks harm to only a few and that punitive damages may be imposed to