Just found this post. It furthers my question, especially with regard to rape. Do we only punish the property aggression with regard t the phsyical damage that the rape results in (i.e. vaginal tearing, etc.) or can restitution also be got for emotional damage?
Consider the following:
A female heart surgeon leaves the hospital where she is employed and is accosted by a man who proceeds to rape her there in the parking lot. Just before the woman is raped, the woman is able to sound a silent alarm that she carries with her, and her protection agency (likely in coordination with her insurance company) comes to her aid. However, her protective service comes just in time to apprehend the man, arresting him as he is about five feet away from her and fleeing the scene.
To remove any further doubt, the woman is also able to recognize the man’s face and voice, and before she can see him again, she explains that the man who raped her had a tattoo of a scorpion on his right hand thumb and the letters ABC written next to it. As it turns out, these letters are the defendant’s initials and he does, in fact, have a tattoo of a scorpion located on his right hand thumb. It is now known almost certainly that the defendant is the man who raped the woman.
Now, by the time the rapist had been apprehended, the rape has already occurred and the damage has been done. The plaintiff will, of course, be awarded reparations for the vaginal tarring that occurred during the rape, per property rights over the woman’s body that had been aggressed. However, the plaintiff also makes a slam dunk case that the rape resulted in severe bouts of depression and shaky hands. She proves in every way possible that before the rape, the depression and shaky hands were not present. She performed expert surgeries for years, ones that required extremely steady hands. These surgeries also never phased her emotionally. She was a robot in the operating room, and could easily compartmentalize her emotions.
Because of the shaky hands, she is no longer able to perform the surgeries without the tremendous liability of harming her patients. Her long and erratic bouts of crying and debilitating depression also destroy her will to do anything, even to eat.
Here is the question: can the defendant also be held to make reparations for the woman’s, likely more severe, emotional trauma, or does this have no place in a free society? Would the lack of income due to the woman’s inability to perform surgeries simply fall under the obligations of her disability policy? This seems like a viable alternative to the defendant’s obligation to pay, however, usually insurance only pays in the absence of justice (i.e. the aggressor is not caught). When you have caught the obvious cause of the problem (the rapist in this case), would it not fall on him; the insurer only paying if the defendant cannot pay? Or would the insurer pay the plaintiff in either case, and the insurer would then have the right to go after the rapist for damages?
Interesting stuff…