The Oregonian reports that on Friday a federal jury in Oregon awarded $18.4 million in punitive damages and $180,000 compensatory damages to a woman who spent two years unsuccessfully trying to get Equifax Information Services to fix major mistakes on her credit report. 

That’s a ratio of about 102 to 1 between the punitive damages and the compensatory damages.  The Oregonian predicts that an appeal is likely.  Even more likely, the defendant will file posttrial motions asking the district court to reduce or vacate the award.

The Ledger of Lakeland County is reporting that a jury in Polk County Florida has awarded $220 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages against two defendants, Trans Healthcare Inc. and Trans Healthcare Management, in a case alleging negligent care at a nursing home owned by the defendants. 

The story says the trial was limited to damages because the court entered a default against the defendants when they stopped participating in the lawsuit.  They did participate in the damages trial, but their defense was apparently not very persuasive to this jury (to put it mildly). 

The story also reports that the same defendants got hit with a $114 million verdict in another case in 2010, and that the plaintiffs in that case are still trying to collect.  The plaintiffs in this case are not likely to fare any better, but at least their lawyers can tout their $1 billion victory. 

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The LA Times is reporting that yesterday a jury in Orange County awarded $1 million in punitive damages against Dan Harkey and his real estate lending company, Point Center Financial, based on allegations that Harkey maliciously breached his fiduciary duties to investors by making ill-advised loans and pocketing fees and commissions from those loans.  The total verdict is $10 million, counting the jury’s prior award of $9 million in compensatory damages.

The case has generated a lot of publicity because Harkey is the husband of Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, who was initially named as a defendant but later dismissed.

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Last Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court issued this opinion (Ackelson v. Manley Toy Direct), reaffirming the court’s earlier ruling that punitive damages are not available in sexual harassment and gender discrimination cases brought under the Iowa Civil Rights Act: 

We have clearly and repeatedly stated our conclusion that the ICRA does not implicitly permit an award of punitive damages. This message has been a reoccurring pronouncement over the last twenty-seven years. No significant legislative changes have been made since our first pronouncement in 1986 that would even hint at a shift in legislative intent since that time.

During this same period, the issue of punitive damages in civil rights claims has received broad national attention, making it very likely that our legislature would have taken action to alter our interpretation if it disapproved.  . . . Overall, we think our legislature would be quite surprised to learn if we decided to reverse course and take a different position under the guise of statutory interpretation. We did our job twenty-seven years ago and will leave it for the legislature to take any different approach.

That excerpt certainly creates the impression that this issue has been settled in Iowa for quite some time (twenty-seven years, to be precise).  Apparently, however, Iowa’s trial courts had not gotten that message.  This Associated Press story in the Globe Gazette reports that “trial judges had been allowing punitive damages in civil rights cases,” according to a local plaintiffs’ attorney.  Presumably that will change now.

The Boston Herald reports that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has reversed an $81 million punitive damages award given to the family of a smoker in a lawsuit against Lorillard Tobacco Co. 

In a unanimous opinion, the court ruled that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on the issues of negligent design and marketing, and that those erroneous instructions may have tainted the punitive damages award.  The court ordered a new trial on punitive damages, but affirmed the jury’s $35 million compensatory damages award, which was supported by alternate theories of liability not impacted by the erroneous instructions.

Law 360 reports (subscription required) that a jury in Alameda County has awarded $16.3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages against Owens-Illinois Inc. 

The plaintiff claims she developed mesothelioma as a result of her exposure to asbestos fibers while shaking out and washing her husband’s clothes.  It is not clear to what extent such “take home” claims are viable in California.  Last year the Second Appellate District, Division Seven, ruled that Ford could not be liable to a plaintiff who claimed she developed mesothelioma as a result of her exposure to asbestos fibers from laundering her father’s and brother’s clothes after they worked as independent contractors installing asbestos at a Ford manufacturing plant. (Campbell v. Ford Motor Co.)  Related issues are pending before the First Appellate District, Division Three, in Kesner v. Pneumo Abex and before the Second Appellate District, Division Three, in Petitpas v. Borgwarner.

Bloomberg News is reporting (via the San Francisco Chronicle) that a federal jury in Manhattan has awarded $12 million in punitive damages to Florida billionaire William Koch, who claimed he was duped into buying collectible wine that turned out to be fake.  The defendant, California internet entrepreneur Eric Greenberg, said he had no idea the wines from his private collection were not authentic.  Obviously the jury didn’t believe him.  Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that the punitive damages award will survive through posttrial motions and an appeal. The award is 31.5 times the compensatory damages of $380,000.   

Earlier today we reported on the plaintiff’s request for $2.5 billion in punitive damages in this case.  The jury has just returned a verdict for $500 million in punitive damages, according to KLAS-TV. That’s $270 million against one defendant and $230 million against another.  While that isn’t nearly as much as the plaintiffs requested, the combined punitive damages are still about 21 times the compensatory damages, which seems to present a serious constitutional excessiveness problem.