Re: Dover Intelligent-Design Case

[Steven Jamar]

Was it a willful bad faith violation, or ignorance and misled?  I don't think they were trying to flaunt the constitution so much as they were interpreting it with wishcraft -- crafting the law to fit their wishes.   I would not think punitive damages are appropriate for inanity in general. Sanctions for lying, perhaps. No.  Tactically and strategically I think the approach of keeping the individuals off the suit as named parties was appropriate.  And I don't see the evidence of bad faith -- as I understand it -- here to support punitive damages. But then, I was a litigator and saw lots of this sort of stuff go by in ordinary civil suits -- not the norm, far from it -- but all too common, and so my threshold for bad faith might be too high. Steve (gotta-stop-avoiding-grading) Jamar On Dec 20, 2005, at 4:12 PM, Lupu wrote: In light of the judge's appraisal of the behavior of the Board  members, do members of the list think that punitive damages might  have been awarded against particular Board members had they  been sued individually?  Would their ordinary immunity from  damages have been lost as a result of what now looks like a wilful,  bad faith violation of the Constitution?  Would an award of punitive  damages against them have been an appropriate remedy?   (Perhaps plaintiffs' counsel feared that such an award would  generate some sympathy for the individual defendants, and  backlash against the plaintiffs.  Obtaining money, of course, was not  the point of the suit -- but such a remedy would certainly deter the  next school board that headed in this direction.) Chip Lupu On 20 Dec 2005 at 15:56, Ed Brayton wrote: Marc Stern wrote:      Were there any interveners? Might Discovery Institute intervene     for purposes of appeal? .During the fight over equal access, the     Supreme Court held in Bender v. Williamsport ASD,475 US 534 that a     single school board member did not have standing to appeal a     decision to allow religious clubs .A fortiori former members     should lack standing, unless ,perhaps they were sued in an     individual capacity and held for damages. The Foundation for Thought and Ethics attempted to intervene but was denied. Discovery Institute did not attempt to intervene. This suit, as far as I know, was only against the school district as a whole, not against the individual members of the school board. There are no damages awarded and none asked for. So I can't imagine there is anyone with standing that could intervene at this point. The school board has said that they will not file an appeal of the case. Ed Brayton Ira C. ("Chip") Lupu F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law  The George Washington University Law School  2000 H St., NW Washington D.C 20052 (202) 994-7053 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. --  Prof. Steven D. Jamar                               vox:  202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law                     fax:  202-806-8567 2900 Van Ness Street NW                   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC  20008   http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/ "A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires sooner or later always leads to bitter disappointment." Albert Einstein

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