Incarceration and owing money are different. Crime and civil liability are different. I feel very "true" to myself, thank you.
You can certainly try but you'd probably not get your 26K. That's not what's going on here though.
What's being proposed here is a removal of a damage cap, non-specific to anyone and prior to any damages award or litigation.
I mean really, what's BP going to argue? That they would have been more cautious had they known their potential liability was larger? (Can't say that anyone in their industry, or any other industry that wants damage caps, would be too thrilled with that argument. Also they are always potentially liable for criminal penalties well beyond the cap.) Or that they wouldn't have drilled? Yeah right.
"If you have it too high you are going to be singling out BP and the other four largest majors and the nationalized companies, such as China and Venezuela, and shutting out the independent producers," he said.
$77,000 is more important than Louisiana.
The standard in the criminal trial was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil trial standard was preponderance of the evidence. It is possible to be able to meet the lower standard of proof without reaching the higher one.OJ Simpson was found not guilty of murder. Yet it was still okay for the family to sue him for her death. That's bullcrud regardless of whether he was guilty or not. It's double jeopardy any way you slice it and if you claim otherwise, you're being untrue to yourself.
BP was leasing from TransOcean. If the government signed any sort of lease, there could be a contractual limit, however, a statute is not that limit unless you peg & freeze it in the contract to be the unchanging limit. And can you really do that with regard to third parties? I could see limiting the damage contractually between contracting parties, but not limiting the damage contractually for those not a party to the contract - fishermen, widows, and orphans, for example.If I sign a lease it is a contract. If you sign a lease it is a contract. Why is it not a contract if the gov signs it?
Can we at least agree it was a contract?
But how can there be criminal charges when the government flat out declined to require them to do what was necessary to prevent this kind of accident. It isn't that it was never conceived as a possibility, it was. It's just that the government willfully chose not to require it.
BP acted in good faith within the requirements set down by law. They should not be held responsible because the government made some decisions on what would not would not be required.
The standard in the criminal trial was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil trial standard was preponderance of the evidence. It is possible to be able to meet the lower standard of proof without reaching the higher one.
I agree. It's just the prosecutor has a tougher job of proving it than the civil lawyer, so there will be some false negatives on the criminal side that pan out on the civil side. If the civil trail was first and the civil lawyers won, does that mean we skip the criminal trial and automatically find him guilty?I agree with VRWCAgent; He was either guilty or he wasn't.
Why force the family to a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard when the burden in a civil case is mere preponderance of the evidence? Why should victims of crime be disfavored in civil court?