Inspired by this thread (jeweler lost wife’s wedding ring
I was wondering how you go about attaching a monetary value to thing labeled “irreplaceable” above and beyond it’s material worth?
How do courts see it when faced with suits like these?
Hypothetical examples may be:
You pay someone $3,000 to photograph your wedding. Afterwards the photographer says his camera was stolen off the front seat of his car and all photos lost. He gives you a full refund of $3000. Fair enough?
There’s an interesting summary here:
http://www.butlerpappas.com/showarticle.aspx?Show=438
I won’t try to add any more because I’m not a US lawyer.
I think the heavy unsentimental ones in that thread misunderstand me or something. I don’t claim that they should get lots of monetary compensation, just that because something is only a couple months old it can still have immense sentimental value.
Look, it isn’t like the damned ring was just a birthday or christmas present, it was a wedding ring. Most women are rather sentimental about what is generally a once in a lifetime event. You can never be first wedding ever ever again. To some women it would be like taking away their firstborn son and swapping in some random screaming same aged infant. Nice, but it isn’t the same thing. As mrAru just joked tell them it is if your Babe Ruth signed ball got swapped out for a Tommy Hanson ball. It just isn’t the same thing.
All values are subjective. If they weren’t most transactions would not occur.
I have product A and want to sell it for $100, most likely another person is not going to buy it unless they believe its value is worth at least $100 and possibly more. But there is likely a “fair value” for the product that most people are willing to pay.
With regards to sentamentality, it is part of the subjective value you place on an item. That is very different from a “fair value”, which most people would be willing to pay for an item. With respect to compensating someone for a loss, typically the value someone is responsible for paying is the “fair value”, what most people would pay for an item, not what one person’s subjective value is.
Putting legality aside, I don’t see the point in putting a financial value on sentimentality. Is a payout going to stop you pining for said item? To me, it seems like extracting cash is like inflicting some kind of revenge - it might make you feel a bit better for a while, but it isn’t going to return what you’ve lost.
And for the record, losing something irreplaceable like the wedding photos is a whole heap more upsetting than a ring for which you can replace like for like.
Well that comparison is utterly ridiculous. Loss of the wedding ring doesn’t mean loss of the event. The ring is a symbol of marriage - a like-for-like replacement is STILL a symbol of that marriage. Ten years down the line, when the couple have had to face far more serious events, like a miscarriage or cancer or a breakdown in the relationship or the death of a parent, the fact that the lump of metal you’re wearing isn’t the exact same lump of metal you put on at the event will really not matter one jot.
The point of sentiment is that it HAS NO VALUE.
If you pay $3,000 for wedding photos and the camera is lost, and you claim you should get MORE than $3,000, what you’re really saying is that your wedding has value that can be named.
So I am crying because $3,000 isn’t enough but happy that $30,000 IS enough. So what your saying in a sense is my wedding is worth $30,000
You see the problem with it?
It’s like saying the $30,000 could replace your wedding. If not than why is the $30,000 enough?
On the flip side, if there is NO money that can be replace that wedding photos, then why even try, beyond the cost.
One might say, but if I had $30,000 I could forget that loss by going on a trip. So what you’re saying is a trip could replace your memories.
See as soon as you assign a worth to something, it’s like saying at that price it can be bought and sold.
You know life is full of stuff called “hard luck.” We’ve raised two generations of children now that can’t cope with simple “bad luck” situations, without feeling like they DESERVE something, for what really is hard luck.
Finally ask yourself on the flip side. Suppose instead of the photographer losing the camera, someone finds it and wants to pay you $30,000 for a particular picture. Maybe it has a celebrity in the background. Would you SHARE your windfall with the photographer?
Or would you say that it’s all yours.
You will find that when you look at things from both sides like that, it often don’t work that way.
Remember before you nail someone to a cross for what is really nothing but bad luck (getting a camera stolen), you remember that shortly you will also do something that is just really bad luck.
::Minor hijack alert:: of course, if you took the 30k, you would be stealing from the photographer, as the photographer retains copyright on the pictures ::Minor hijack alert over::
Otherwise, I agree with you entirely. This compensation culture and sense of entitlement is really quite revolting.