How much is a human life worth?

Question

When big corporations design products it is often cheaper to make them less safe, but they have to calculate how much they could get sued for if their product costs lives and at a certain point its not cost-effective to continue to produce it. How much can they expect (approximately) to be sued for each life lost? In other words how much is a human life worth?

Update:

Asked for an answer, didnt get one, just a lot of waffling. No best answer will be rewarded

Anonymous · Answer

Millions each, divided by how many actually sue. But your question is moot, since stupid Americans let republicunts hock our jobs,and eviscerate our rights and product quality. We're a poverty-stricken monoploy economy now, so "where else you gonna go except here to buy our crap, ha ha suckers!" Screw the people, let them be sick, dead, deprived, educationless, poor, WHATEVER, so long as a few billionaires can have even more money they can't ever spend, and destroy the whole f**king country in pursuit of it.
There's your  America, republicons, and the stupid masses.

Anonymous · Answer

Safety isn't the main problem. For most things there are minimum requirements set by law. Anything that is not set by law is up to the user of the product. What really matters is how well the product design team works with their budget for designing and manufacturing the product. Anyone can design a bridge. It takes a top engineer to design it as cheaply as possible while at the same time being innovative with safety and functional requirements when it makes a significant difference.

Scott · Answer

The is the dilemma Ford faced with their Pinto car back in the 1970's. The take the estimated amount of a liability settlement x the probability of the number of claims. If that amount is less than the cost of a recall, they don't do the recall.

Pearl · Answer

i think theyre worth alot

How much is a human life worth?

4 Answers