Summary
A recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that a punitive damages award based in part on a jury's desire to punish a defendant for harming nonparties amounts to a taking of property in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution has both the plaintiffs' and defense bars claiming victory.
The Court agreed to review a $79.5 million punitive award in a tobacco case from Oregon to determine both if juries could consider harm to nonparties and whether the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages - in this case, 97 to 1 - could exceed a single-digit ratio based on the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct.See the full content of this document
Extract
Both Sides Claiming Victory in Supreme Court Punitives Case
But the Court never reached the issue of ratios. Instead, the justices focused on harm to others and tried to strike a delicate balance: while plaintiffs may introduce evidence of harm to nonparties to help establish the reprehensibility of a defendant's conduct, that information may not be used by jurors to actually punish the defendant.
Both sides of the bar found something to like in the opinion.E...See the full content of this document
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