23.25 Punitive Damages in a Products Liability Case

JurisdictionArizona

23.25 Punitive Damages in a Products Liability Case. In Arizona, punitive damages are awarded to victims in excess of their compensatory damages as a means of punishing a wrongdoer and to accomplish the societal interest in deterring others from repeating defendants’ wrongful conduct.624 Punitive damages cannot be awarded in the absence of compensatory damages.625

A defendant’s conduct need not be intentional to warrant punitive damages.626 A defendant may be susceptible to punitive damages “where, although not intending to cause injury, defendant consciously pursued a course of conduct knowing that it created a substantial risk of significant harm to others.”627 As noted by the Arizona Supreme Court in Bradshaw v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance ,628 punitive damages are appropriate where the plaintiff proves facts:

[f]rom which the jury can conclude that even though defendant had neither desire nor motive to injure (i.e., neither intent nor spite), he acted to serve his own interests, having reason to know and consciously disregarding a substantial risk that his conduct might significantly injure the rights of others.

Evidence of an “evil mind” can be inferred from the circumstances of a case, including where the defendant engages in “outrageous, oppressive or intolerable conduct that creates a substantial risk of tremendous harm to others.”629 Similarly, when “the conduct involved repeated actions” (as opposed to an isolated incident), the reprehensibility of a defendant’s conduct warrants imposition of punitive damages.630 Mere gross negligence or reckless disregard of the circumstances, however, will not support an award of punitive damages.631 “Something more” is required.632 For example, a manufacturer’s marketing of a defective product will not, by itself, support punitive damages.633

Punitive damages may only be awarded where a plaintiff proves by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant possessed the requisite “evil mind.”634 Factors courts consider in evaluating the defendant’s state of mind include the reprehensibility of the conduct, the severity of harm actually or potentially caused and the defendant’s awareness of it, the duration of the misconduct, and any concealment of the risk of harm.635 An evil mind can be established by a defendant’s statements, or inferred from its express conduct or objectives.636

The plaintiff must also prove that the defendant’s conduct supporting punitive damages proximately caused harm to the plaintiff.637

Where punitive damages are properly awarded, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the court to ensure that the size of the punitive...

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