Suppose that Jane lives in Illinois, and she provides help to 30 women in Texas in obtaining abortions. Now suppose that 20 people in various states sue her under Texas law, which says that you can be sued for $10,000 for doing this. Can each person successfully sue Jane 30 times, making her liable for a total of 30x20x$10,000, or six million dollars?
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I don’t think it’s a duplicate: The core of this question essentially is whether groups could conspire to side step the statutory limitations in the cited questions by going to other courts. In essence: The question is whether one could sue under this law outside of Texas, and along those line, could the threshold be side stepped. I’ll vote to reopen if it gets closed.– kisspuskaCommented Dec 24, 2021 at 21:38
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1I don't see how one can sue outside of Texas under SB8, but suits in multiple Texas counties are clearly allowed, and there is nothing that says such suits can not be filed at essentially the same time.– David SiegelCommented Dec 24, 2021 at 22:08
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This question is a strict subset of the other question, which already has as comprehensive an answer as may be expected, and covers this one as a specific case of the general analysis.– user4657Commented Dec 25, 2021 at 7:59
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@kisspuska, I don't understand your comment. Are you suggesting that a person could sue in Virginia courts for a tort specifically created in Texas, one which does not exist under Virginia law?– user6726Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 17:42
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1@kisspuska There is no provision for split awards, no provision for awards of less than 10k, and no requirement to prove any costs to get the 10k. Costs are in addition to the 10k.– David SiegelCommented Dec 26, 2021 at 22:42
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2 Answers
It’s a Texas state law; none of the 20 persons could sue Jane in any state other than in Texas, and generally only in the state courts of Texas, and not in federal court.
So, for these reasons only, the amount in controversy could not exceed $300,000, as Jane could only be ordered to pay $10,000 for each violation (see, e.g., Does double jeopardy apply to the Texas abortion bill?) and sued only in Texas.
It’s questionable whether a judge would hand down a $300,000 punitive damage order when the interest of the state in deterring recidivism or imitation of outlawed conduct would probably be achieved against an average Jane by a much lower punitive damage amount. Analogously to other types of punitive damages, most likely the maximum multiplier would be less than 10x or less than $100,000 even with 30 violations.
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No. The law prohibits a court from awarding damages against a person who has already paid the full amount of damages for the conduct at issue in the lawsuit.
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-1 But it does not prohibit awarding damages when a judgement has been given but not yet paid in full. Commented Dec 27, 2021 at 3:35