Justice Breyer in a discussion of compensatory objective

The mesothelioma law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg would like to provide with some excerpts of a discussion of compensatory objective by Justice Breyer.

It would be perverse to apply tort law’s basic compensatory objectives in a way that compensated less serious injuries at the expense of more serious harms.

Yet, as JUSTICE KENNEDY points out, the majority’s broad interpretation of the scope of compensable fears threatens to do precisely that. The kind of fear at issue here—a “brooding, contemplative fear,” ante, at 7 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.), brought about by knowledge of exposure to a substance, or of a present condition, correlated with an elevated cancer risk—is associated quite generally with negligent exposure to toxic substances.

In addition to generating fear of cancer, such exposure may well produce large numbers of plaintiffs, serious injuries, and large monetary awards—all against limited funds available for compensation. And, as the history of asbestos litigation shows, such a combination of circumstances can occur despite a threshold requirement of physical harm.

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