Monet paintings and damages for injuries
The Orsay Museum, located on the Left Bank of Paris, contains a major collection of impressionist painter Claude Monet. On an early Sunday morning October 7, 2007 four or five drunk young people broke into the Orsay Museum through a back door. The group first tried to force open other doors until they succeeded with the back door. It happened during an annual all night festival, The alarm sounded and the intruders ran out, but not before surveillance cameras showed them damaging a Monet painting, inflicting a four inch tear in the canvas by punching it with a fist. The painting, Monet’s Le Pont d’Argenteuil is a priceless painting by Monet which shows a view of the Seine featuring a bridge and boats. It seems to me that this is an excellent example to use, where this argument is allowed, for damages. Here we have priceless painting gashed with a 4" tear. Not destroyed, but damaged beyond repair. Permanently harmed forever. It may not be totaly destroyed, but it will never be what it once was. What amount of money represents the damage done to this painting? How about human beings when they are changed forever by injury? What amount of money represents the harm to a human being when we compare that amount to a painting?