Professor Mark A. Geistfeld has an article entitled “Punitive Damages, Retribution and Due Process” in the January 2008 edition of the Southern California Law Review. The article calls for a new method of analyzing the excessiveness of punitive damages in cases involving serious bodily injury and death. He posits that punitive damages should serve to vindicate the social cost of a premature death. Relying on government statistics to compute those costs, he concludes that the $79.5 million punitive damages award approved by the Oregon Supreme Court in Philip Morris v. Williams was not excessive.

Click here to see the abstract.

Hat tip to How Appealing.