Show me the money!

At the party in the library Friday, I passed President Richard Brodhead puttering through the crowd. I had a momentary desire to put my hand on his shoulder, look into his eyes and say "Dick, I support you." I'm sure it's something he doesn't hear very often, and I thought it might buck him up. Fending off lawsuits probably takes a toll on a man.

I'm speaking of course of the pending suit leveled against Duke by a recent alumna. Maybe I'm in the minority, but when I read about lawsuits demanding money to address "emotional distress," I have more sympathy for the person being sued than the aggrieved person.

To be fair, I actually think this is a really interesting case. It brings up several valid questions about our judicial process at Duke and in America. For instance, how can we guarantee fair judicial proceedings in a private institution, and how should they work in the first place? Should a father who happens to be a lawyer represent his daughter in court? Should people use very public lawsuits as a way of strong-arming other people into submitting to their will? Most importantly, though, should this sort of proceeding be used to address emotional distress?

Liability is a fine line to walk. There are cases where lawsuits are totally appropriate. For instance, imagine that Student Health had negligently given this alumna medicine that she was allergic to and nearly killed her. In that case you can point to monetary costs, physical harm and negligence bordering on criminality. But in a case where the damages you claim are emotional, I think it's harder to point to anything of substance. Is "Duke made me cry" justification for a cash prize, courtesy of other students' tuition? I tend to think it isn't.

First of all, from what I've seen, money and emotional security are typically polar opposites. At the very least, I don't think being handed money helps someone get over being upset, unless they're below the age of 10. I'm not comfortable with the belief that the storm and stress of a court case, with the possibility of a cash jackpot, heals emotional wounds. But that's not the only problem lawsuits like this bring up.

It's true that if professors become targets for lawsuits because the students they give bad grades become upset, they might not grade appropriately. But for me, the real concern is that a legal process where feelings like sadness, anger or distress can be exchanged for thousands of dollars will only attract a certain type of person to be a trial lawyer; I mean the type who sees the judicial process not as a way to find truth or expose wrong-doing, but as a way to make money from little basis.

Don't get me wrong, I think most trial lawyers are good and honest people. From what I've heard, you usually don't go through the hell of law school unless you have some concern higher than money. And I've known enough lawyers to say that for most of them, manipulating the system for personal gain is the last thing on their mind. That's why I always cringe at lawyer jokes, because so few of them are true.

So I think the last thing in the world we should do is incentivize lawyers to act like they do in those misleading jokes. That will eventually corrupt the whole system into a veritable cash lottery, and may have already.