The end is very near for Cathy Seipp, and I’m frustrated with my inarticulateness in conveying my sorrow and anger over the injustice and absurdity of her untimely death. I was an early fan of hers, noticing that her idiosyncratic tastes in books and television corresponded nicely with mine. I first started corresponding with the feisty reporter when, in the course of self-Googling, she discovered a link to her Mediaweek columns on my old homepage in 2000; she generously quoted me when a tidbit I told her about the old Burns & Allen show ended up as an anecdote in one of her columns. We were on opposite coasts by 2001, but managed to say hello regularly on the occasions when one of us made the journey in one direction or the other. Every time I saw her, she was surrounded by lively and intelligent and bright friends drawn by her sharp wit and no-nonsense style, and I was always sorry that I wasn’t able to spend more time around that latterday Algonquin Round Table. I admire how resolute she was in the face of death; I regret that we missed each other last time she was in DC, and that the last time we broke bread together wasn’t in a better restaurant than the Sheraton breakfast buffet as we had agreed.

To perhaps inappropriately steer the conversation to the subject of this site, as noneconomic losses go, it’s hard to think of a larger one than the premature loss of Cathy Seipp; her family and friends will miss her love, her laughter, and her pointed observations; we’ll all miss her writing. Despite that, there would be no justice if one were to randomly select a deep pocket and demand it pay us all millions to compensate us for that loss. Losses are suffered without compensation all of the time; people are untimely struck down by aneurysms, mental illness, skiing accidents—and cancer.

The fact that, in some cases, there is the possibility of constructing a plausible scenario to blame a deep pocket and force it to compensate those who have suffered a loss does not ineluctably mean that that wealth-transfer must occur for justice to be done. Often it’s quite the opposite. That we at Overlawyered often argue against such compensation as contrary to the long-term interests of the public good does not mean that we do not value life or understand the hurt or unquantifiable costs of a life taken too soon. The case of Cathy Seipp, who will die of a cancer that just happened to happen to her without anyone to blame or sue, and the sorrow we feel for her loss, is refutation enough of that strawman.

I’m proud to have been able to call Cathy Seipp a friend, and ashamed that I cannot do justice to her memory through my own words. Let’s use hers: Cathy encountering a liability-fearing school bureaucracy over an asthma inhaler, on the miracle of public-school teacher tenure, and on the Guardian‘s counterproductive 2004 election letter-writing campaign. Go to her web page and leave good wishes.

Filed under: about the site, deep pocket