EclectEcon

Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

C'est la vie; c'est la guerre; c'est la pomme de terre . . . . . . . . . . . . . email: jpalmer at uwo dot ca


. . . . . . . . . . .Richard Posner should be awarded the next Nobel Prize in Economics . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Make the Perp, Not the Victim, Whole?


One of the many legal compensation principles floating around is that the victim be made whole -- as well off as s/he would have been had some harmful incident not occurred.

It would be reasonable to expect the courts to apply this principle to the victim of a bank robbery, but not so in Holland. There, in an effort to make the perpetrator whole, the courts required him to repay a bank he robbed, but he was allowed to deduct the cost of the pistol he purchased to carry out the robbery.

As one of the commenters here remarked, if they are going to implement policies like this, perhaps it is better that the courts not understand the concept of opportunity costs!

I really do not understand how making the perpetrator whole should take precedence over making the victim whole.
[H/T to BrianF]
 
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