The legal system provides a method to compensate those who have sustained injuries. But there are still those who question its underlying rationale. Why, they ask, should an injured person receive compensation? This actually is an old question, one worthy of being answered again.
So, why compensate?
First: Because the negligent individual has taken something away from someone that’s valuable. Since we cannot replace what’s been taken away in practical terms, the most reasonable alternative is to compensate the injured person in dollars for what’s been lost. Compensation serves as a replacement for what’s been taken away.
Second: Because the negligent individual has trespassed. Trespass is the unauthorized crossing of a line. Someone without authority steps into an area where they have no right to be. A person’s body, if wrongfully injured by another, has been trespassed. Once that trespass occurs there arises a corresponding right to recover for the harm inflicted.
Third: Because the negligent individual would benefit were compensation to the injured person not allowed. The wrongdoer benefits because he’s permitted to trespass upon another without paying for the damage he’s caused. That confers a benefit to the wrongdoer since there’s a value—often great value—to be able to act in ways that hurt others without having to pay for the damage inflicted.
Fourth: Because society has an interest in seeing compensation paid. After an accident, those injured have lost something they otherwise would have possessed: the ability to live their life free of pain and disability. That loss of a normal life has value to the individual but also to society. It’s in society’s best interest that its citizens live their life free of negligently inflicted harm. When one person causes harm to another, society has an interest in seeing that the wrongdoer compensate that person for the harm inflicted since otherwise society would have to pay for the damages caused by the wrongdoer.
Fifth: Because compensation acts as a deterrent, thus preventing similar harm to others in the future. If wrongdoers are held accountable this tends to deter the same behavior from occurring again, thus preventing others from suffering a similar injury.
Sixth: Because not requiring compensation would actually cause further harm to those injured. Because without compensation, those injured are doubly harmed: first by the initial harm inflicted, and second by the harm of having to live their life uncompensated for injuries wrongfully inflicted by another.
Seventh: Because an injured individual possesses a natural right to some form of remedy and recompense. Tort law does serve as a means of exacting recompense since it is no longer possible to exact recompense from a wrongdoer in any other manner.
Why compensate?
Because one’s physical well-being is a defining characteristic of one’s personhood. It’s what makes us human. It transcends place or circumstance, time or necessity. It’s a gift bequeathed to us at birth, held for a period of time until death. It’s a gift one does nothing to receive, thus making it all the more valuable. One’s inherent right to a state of physical well-being does not hinge upon the authority of another. It’s sacred, inviolate, as innate to a person’s identity as their own soul. Why compensate? Because we silently recognize that everyone carries this right with them always, invisibly, wherever they may go.
