What A Judgment in the Browne Sanders v. MSG Trial

I am all about people getting their money. And I will disclose all of my bias here and say that it is especially sweet when someone from historically impoverished culture is the recipient of said money…even if they didn’t come from a low-income background themselves. That’s why when Anucha Browne Sanders was “awarded” $11.6 million for her sexual harassment suit against MSG I was astounded, not by the money, but by my own natural reaction of: “What in the world?”

Granted, civil suits often end up with the prosecutor getting money as long as they seem 51% credible and don’t seriously sabotage their own case. There’s barely any burden of proof required for the prosecution, even though it’s set up that way, because human emotion is just naturally inclined to defend the victim, no matter what the circumstances may be.

But to award Anucha Browne Sanders with $11.6 million is kind of ridiculous! I’m not even sure how a jury could even get to that number. I understand that the number is the sum of three different liable components, but it still does not justify awarding someone that kind of money for sexual harassment.

Where is the justification?

Anucha Browne Sanders may have made $200K-$300K tops per year in her last full year with MSG. So you figure that the she gets paid 10 years worth of her salary; that’s twice the amount of time she had been with the team. That should take care of her hostile work environment judgment. You throw in another 500K for legal fees. And if it is completely reasonable to personally fine Dolan for allowing the hostile to go on (something I think is unreasonable and serves as double jeopardy considering that he is MSG), she should get no more than the same amount she got for the hostile environment judgment. All and all, that’s $6.5 million. That’s still way too much for me, but at least it can be justified unlike the $11.6 million finding.

People who get raped do not get awarded $11.6 million. Obviously, this is the people taking down a billion dollar organization in order to take a stand.

See that’s the problem with America and why this has become an “I am going to sue your a$$” nation. People can change their lives and be awarded riches that overly compensate what they went through. Yes, I cannot ever claim to have been sexually harassed or anything like that in the work place, but I do know that if I’m being treated unfairly I make it come to an end right there. If I allow it to persist and torment me to the point of letting it create an unreasonable life for myself and my career, than at some point I have start looking at myself in the mirror. Not to say any of this is Anucha Browne Sanders fault, but if the reason the jury is awarding her so much money has to do with how much pain and anguish Anucha went through for 4 or 5 years, that should curbed by the fact that she had the option to quit and sue well before she did.

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