I personally believe that the value of a human life is priceless (in a subjective sense). However in an objective sense you can use a heuristic to figure out damages a company should payout. I would love to know how the jury came up with that number.
I don't say this to diminish the value of human life, because there certainly is no amount of money in the world that can bring back a murdered loved one, but I'm wondering how they come up with the value of $7 billion? I mean that will certainly get the attention of service providers, I'm just surprised at the amount.
This isn't actually that steep if you compare it to a human being getting convicted of manslaughter. The fraction of a person's life and income taken away by damages fines and incarceration are much larger than what charter will (not actually) lose.
That seems a bit excessive. I understand there is some emotional damage due to the stolen checks and the billed amount going to collections, but $7 billion? The lady who was killed was over the average life expectancy!