The West Virginia Record has this report about oral arguments in the West Virginia Supreme Court in a case involving an $80 million punitive damages award.

The Associated Press is reporting that a judge in Miller County Arkansas has awarded $525 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Church.  The church is an arm of Alamo Ministries, founded by evangelical preacher Tony Alamo.  The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seven women who alleged they were physically and sexually abused by Alamo starting when they were as young as nine years old. 

The article doesn’t specify how much of the $525 was for punitive damages, but it indicates that the ratio of punitive damages was 2 to 1, which suggests the punitive damages award must be about $350 million.

Alamo himself was already hit with a $60 million punitive damages award for abusing young boys.  The Eighth Circuit reduced that award to $24 million.

In a separate criminal proceeding, Alamo was sentenced to 175 years in prison. 

A Mondaq.com article by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright reports a trend towards rising punitive damages awards in Canada. As evidence of the trend, the article discusses recent awards of $4.5 million, $200,000, and $500,000.  Everything is relative; such awards would not provide any evidence of “rising” punitive damages in California.

Last October we reported on the Court of Appeal’s published opinion in Pfeifer v. John Crane, which affirmed a $14.5 million punitive damages award.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied two requests to depublish the opinion.  The defendant, John Crane, had submitted one of those requests. The other was a combined submission on behalf of the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel and the Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California and Nevada.

In our prior post, we suggested the Supreme Court might grant John Crane’s petition for review and hold this case pending the disposition of Webb v. Special Electric, another case involving the “sophisticated purchaser” defense.  John Crane, however, asked to withdraw its petition for review. The Supreme Court granted that request as part of its order yesterday, so Pfeifer remains good law.  But the Supreme Court will have the last say on the sophisticated purchaser issue when it issues its opinion in Webb. 

This isn’t exactly breaking news.  HarrisMartin (subscription required) reported this story on December 18, but we’ve been a little backlogged around here so we’re just getting around to blogging about it.

A jury in Los Angeles has awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $3.6 million in punitive damages against Crown, Cork & Seal Company Inc., a manufacturer of asbestos-containing pipe insulation.  This represents a significantly better result for the plaintiffs than the first trial in this case, which ended in a defense verdict. That first judgment was reversed in a published opinion, however, because the Court of Appeal determined that the trial court had wrongly excluded the “consumer expectations” theory of product defect from the case.   
   
Disclaimer: Horvitz & Levy LLP is involved in this litigation, representing a different defendant in a related appeal arising out of the first trial.

The American Tort Reform Foundation has once again listed California at the top of its Judicial Hellhole rankings.  The report mentions, among other things, the $11 million punitive damages award in the Grigg v. Owens-Illinois case, which we discussed here.  That certainly wasn’t the largest award of the year, but it made the report because of some surprising rulings by the trial court.  Among other things, the articles says that the trial judge determined in posttial proceedings that that the punitive damages claim never should have gone to the jury, but she nonetheless refused to vacate the award.

Related posts:

Oakland jury awards $11M in punitive damages against Owens-Illinois

The December 2013 edition of Wilson Elser’s Product Liability Newsletter discusses the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision in Aleo v. SLB Toys, which affirmed an $18 million punitive damages award.  The newsletter notes that Massachusetts is one of only eight states that permit punitive damages based on gross negligence, and is the only one of those eight that has not restricted, by statute or judicial decision, the circumstances in which gross negligence can support punitive damages. 

Related posts:

Massachusetts Supreme Court upholds $18 million punitive damages award (Aleo v. Toys R Us)

Today’s Daily Journal has an article (subscription required) by Judge Rex Heeseman of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.  Judge Heeseman was written several editorials on the topic of punitive damages.  In this one, he discusses some of the published California decisions on punitive damages, including Nickerson, Davis, and Nevarrez.  He concludes that none of these cases can be described as “blockbusters.” I tend to agree, although I think there’s a chance the California Supreme Court may take an interest in Nevarrez.

You can read our posts on those opinions at the links below.

Related posts:

Court of Appeal reissues opinion approving jury instruction on clear and convincing evidence (Nevarrez v. San Marino Skilled Nursing)

Court of Appeal orders reduction of $19M punitive damages award to $350,000 (Nickerson v. Stonebridge) – PART II

Court of Appeal orders reduction of $19M punitive damages award to $350,000 (Nickerson v. Stonebridge) – PART I

Court of Appeal reverses order granting summary adjudication of punitive damages in harassment case (Davis v. Kiewit)

The LA Times reports that yesterday a jury in Oklahoma awarded $3 million in compensatory damages against Toyota in a “sudden acceleration” case.  The jury also found that Toyota acted with “reckless disregard,” the prerequisite for awarding punitive damages under Oklahoma law. 

NJ.com reports that members of the Wilf family, who own the Minnesota Vikings, have been ordered to pay $84.5 million, including $36.8 million in punitive damages, for cheating their business partners out of revenue from an apartment complex.  A copy of the judge’s order appears at this link.