ABC10 News in San Diego is reporting that a federal court jury has awarded a staggering $185 million in punitive damages in a pregnancy and gender discrimination case against AutoZone.  The compensatory damages award was $900,000.

There’s no chance that punitive damages award survives post-trial and appellate review.  It is more than three times higher than the largest punitive damages award ever affirmed in California.

The ABC10 story reports that the punitive damages award is $25 million more than the plaintiff’s attorneys requested.  That means they asked for $160 million in punitive damages in a case with a $900,000 compensatory damages award.  They would have been better off asking for a more modest amount, which might have stood a chance of surviving judicial review.   

When the California Supreme Court dismissed review yesterday in Buell-Wilson v. Ford, it may have set a new high for punitive damages in California. Unless the Court of Appeal has a dramatic change of heart or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, it appears that Ford will have to pay $55 million in punitive damages, which appears to be the largest punitive damages award to survive appeal in California.

To our knowledge, these five cases represent the largest punitive damages awards that California appellate courts have allowed to stand:

1. Buell-Wilson v. Ford (2008) [depublished]: $55 million

2. Boeken v. Philip Morris (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 1640: $50 million

3. Rufo v. Simpson (2001) 86 Cal.App.4th 573: $25 million

4. Vann v. Travelers (1998) [unpublished]: $25 million

5. Paine Webber v. Fireman’s Fund (1997) [unpublished] $21 million

It’s possible there may be some others we don’t know about, especially since the older unpublished opinions are not available on Westlaw, but based on our firm’s experience in handling these types of cases, we’re fairly confident this list is accurate. If anyone knows of a case that’s missing from the list, please let us know. (Keep in mind that we’re talking about the post-appeal numbers; we know that California juries have awarded verdicts that would top anything on this list, but those awards did not survive appeal.)

Last October we reported on the massive $631 judgment against Boeing in a lawsuit brought by ICO Global Communications Ltd., a satellite communications company. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, superior court judge Emilie Elias ruled on Boeing’s post-trial motions last Thursday.

The P-I reports that Judge Elias rejected most of Boeing’s arguments, but she vacated one finding that Boeing’s satellite unit, Boeing Satellite Systems, was liable for fraud and negligent misrepresentation. She upheld the jury’s award of $279 million in compensatory damages for breach of contract and a separate award of $91.6 million for fraud and misrepresentation. She also upheld $177 million in punitive damages against Boeing, but halved the $59 million in punitive damages against the satellite unit because of the vacated jury finding.

With $577 million of the judgment still intact, something tells me there will be an appeal. If the Court of Appeal were to affirm the punitive damages award, it would apparently be the sixth largest punitive damages award to survive appeal in the U.S.

According to Reuters, a Los Angeles jury has awarded $236.86 million in punitive damages against Boeing, on top of $370.6 million in compensatory damages awarded last week. The plaintiff in the case is ICO Global Communications Ltd., a satellite communications company. Apparently, ICO accused Boeing of fraud and breach of contract for its failure to deliver on a contract to launch a dozen satellites that were supposed to form the basis of a new global communications network.

According to this story on Am Law, ICO’s lawyers asked for $1.5 billion in compensatory damages and $949 million in punitive damages. They’ll just have to make do with a total judgment in excess of $600 million.

The case number is BC320115, in case any enterprising readers want to download case documents from the L.A. Superior Court’s website.

Not surprisingly, Boeing says it plans to appeal. If the appeal is unsuccessful and the full punitive damages award is affirmed on appeal, this would apparently be the 6th highest punitive damages award ever to survive appeal, behind these five:

1. Hilao v. Estate of Marcos (9th Cir. 1996) 103 F.3d 767 ($1.2 billion)

2. Motorola Credit Corp. v. Uzan (2d Cir. 2007) 509 F.3d 74 ($1 billion)

3. Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker (2008) 128 S.Ct. 2605 ($507.5 million)

4. The $270 million punitive damages award against NiSource and Chesapeake Energy that the West Virginia Supreme Court declined to even review

5. Time Warner Entertainment v. Six Flags Over Georgia (Ga. Ct. App. 2002) 563 S.E.2d 178, cert. denied ($257 million)

If anyone knows of a larger award that survived appeal, we’d love to hear about it. Earlier this year we invited our readers to identify anything missing from this list, and no one named anything bigger than these five.