Dear Source:
It is not accurate to describe non-economic damages as simply "pain and suffering". Even Attorney Feuerzeig included such additional things as "disfigurement, physical impairment and other non-pecuniary damages" in the cap. Non-economic damages include such things as the loss of a person's ability to participate in activities previously enjoyed, for instance, a tennis player whose injuries force him to give up tennis and prohibit him from participating in any active sport, a person who loves to dance, whose injuries make it impossible for her ever dance again, a Carnival devotee whose back injury makes it impossible for him to play a character or "go down the road" with his troupe. It also includes the emotional pain of a mother who has been blinded and can no longer see her children as they grow up. Some of these things are referred to as the "loss of the enjoyment of life".
Non-economic means that it does not cost the injured person money, but money is not always the worst loss.
Mr. Harper's words exemplify the often baseless arguments of the insurance industry, when he states that a cap instituted less than 10 years ago kept insurance rates down for 20 years. Perhaps they have a time machine.
The insurance industry also carefully tries to hide that their arguments are an insult to the people of the territory, since the amount of damages is not set by the person injured, but by a judge and jury in accord with legal standards. The insurance industry is saying that the people of the Virgin Islands cannot make rational determinations about the value of a loss unless an accountant can add it up. Or perhaps they just believe that a person who has caused injury should never have to pay more than $75,000 for the emotional pain of a Virgin Islander, whether that pain extends for 2 years or for 40 years.
And by the way, we have not yet heard an executive of an actual insurance company operating here say that their company would actually leave if the cap was raised or eliminated.
Judith L. Bourne
St. Thomas
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