A reader sent an email to me this week with a simple question: Is it fair that a man, accused of wrongdoing, settles a lawsuit through an insurance carrier so he doesn’t have to pay from his own pocket?
Here’s my answer:
No, it’s not fair. It is conventional, though: most people have insurance coverage for risks to their property, and damage that they might inflict on the property of others.
In the end, no amount of money makes an injured person whole, or restores him to his uninjured condition. Lost limbs, or eyesight, for example, are not adequately compensated through money, no matter how much. Money damages are the law’s imperfect way of compensating an injured person.
Fairness, and justice, would mean that the injury never took place. We have no way of making that happen. We can, though, do more — as a community — than to assume falsely that money in settlement is enough in municipal matters. We owe it to ourselves to establish professional standards and hire public officials who will strive honestly and truly to reach them. Our city needs a police chief who will lead and teach well and accountably; effort expended toward self-praise and excuse-making is the effort of a fiction writer, not a worthy public official.
In any fair, accountable, normal situation, those wandering about half-trained and all-wrong would have been dismissed. Their leaders would have followed them out the door.
That’s not our situation — we have not been afforded even the leadership of an average, normal community. Money’s hardly adequate compensation — from whatever source — but we have nothing else but excuses and distortions now.