According to this press release on New York Injury News, a jury in Pennsylvania has awarded $95 million in punitive damages against a former nurse who admitted to killing 29 people and attempting to kill six more by administering lethal doses of drugs. It would be awfully difficult to argue against a big punitive damages award in a case like that. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, the defendant has no assets, so they’re not likely to see a penny of this award. Unless, of course, the defendant writes a book about his experiences, but a killer would never do something like that, right?

We’re 46th! According to this survey conducted by the US Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Litigation Reform, California’s litigation climate ranks 46th in the nation in the eyes of corporate counsel and executives. That’s down from 44th in 2008, the last time the survey was conducted. The same survey lists Los Angeles County as the second worst venue in the nation. Unlike the 2008 survey, this year’s survey does not include a separate ranking for each state on the issue of punitive damages.

Hat tip: CJAC

In December of last year we reported on a jury’s award of $100 million in punitive damages to ten workers who claimed they were exposed to toxic fumes at a BP plant in Galveston. We noted that the award was not likely to hold up because of the absurdly high ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages.

As it turns out, we were correct that the award wouldn’t hold up, but the ratio issue never came into play. The Associated Press is reporting that the trial judge (U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt) has ruled that the plaintiffs are not entitled to any punitive damages in this case. According to the story, Judge Hoyt has issued a posttrial ruling stating that the plaintiffs failed to present clear and convincing evidence that BP acted with intent to harm or engaged in gross negligence, and plaintiffs are therefore entitled to no punitive damages.

I have no evidence to back this up, but my sense is that judges are more inclined to do this sort of thing (toss out a punitive damages award altogether) when the amount of the award is obviously excessive. Thus, even if they don’t reach the issue of excessiveness, they are influenced by the size of the award. Maybe it’s just because an obviously excessive award is a clear indication that something went awry during the jury’s deliberative process.

UPDATE: California appellate specialist Donna Bader has posted some commentary about this story on her Appeal to Reason Blog. She writes:

Some will celebrate this reduction as a victory for companies. Those
who do so may believe that individual plaintiffs should not be entitled to
punitive damages at all or that the award just seems like a lot of money. Others
will despair, as this case is just one of many where judges have reduced
punitive damages – ignoring the jury’s verdict – until they do nothing to punish
wrongdoers. As stated by plaintiff’s attorney, the decision gives BP a “free pass” to
continue hurting its workers.

Personally, I don’t see this case a victory for companies. Nor do I see it as a cause for despair because a trial judge has ignored a jury’s verdict. Instead, I presume that the judge honestly concluded that the plaintiffs in this particular case had failed to introduce evidence to satisfy the legal standard for imposing punitive damages. That type of post-verdict review is an integral part of our justice system; trial and appellate judges are not supposed to reflexively accept any result reached by a jury, even if that result is unsupported by the evidence. In particular, judicial review of punitive damages awards has existed as a safeguard for as long as punitive damages have been awarded. (See, e.g., Huckle v. Money (C.P. 1763) 2 Wils. 205, 95 Eng. Rep. 768.) Sometimes that review works in favor of a defendant (corporate or otherwise), and sometimes it doesn’t.

This L.A. Times story (“Toyota Just the Latest Automaker To Face Auto Safety Litigation“) is not really about punitive damages. But it does touch on the topic, and in the process it gets the facts all wrong.

The author of the story argues that products defect litigation has made cars safer. As an example of a case that spurred safety innovations, the story reports that in the 1975 case Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., “a California appeals court ordered the carmaker to pay $125 million in punitive damages to the victims of one of the Ford Pinto’s fiery explosions.”

Umm, no. The Court of Appeal ordered Ford to pay $3.5 million in punitive damages, not $125 million. The jury awarded $125 million in punitive damages, but the trial court reduced that amount to $3.5 million (by ordering a conditional new trial subject to a remittitur), and the Court of Appeal affirmed that ruling.

The story comes a little closer to the truth when it says a couple of sentences later that “[t]he award was reduced to $3.5 million in a post-verdict negotiation . . . .” But that’s not right either. As noted, the punitive damages award was reduced to $3.5 million by the trial court, not as a result of a post-verdict negotiation. The post-verdict negotiations reduced the compensatory damages award from $3.5 million to a little over $3 million (see footnote 1 in the opinion), but the parties did not agree to a reduction of the punitive damages. If the parties had agreed to a post-verdict of reduction of punitive damages, there wouldn’t have been an appeal on the punitive damages, and so the Court of Appeal couldn’t possibly have ordered Ford to pay the full amount of the jury’s award, as the story reports. In short, the article is not only wrong on the facts, but it reports facts that are just plain nonsensical.

As I said, the Times article isn’t really about punitive damages, so perhaps I’m being unfair by zeroing in on that part of the article for criticism. But in my view, this article is an example of a recurring pattern; when reporters in the mainstream media start talking about punitive damages, they often mangle the facts.

The Gainesville Sun reports that a jury has awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages (on top of $5 million in compensatory damages) against RJ Reynolds in the latest installment of the ongoing series of lawsuits by Florida smokers.

Related posts:

Florida Trial Judge Cuts $244 Million Punitive Damages Award

Florida Jury Awards $25 Million in Punitive Damages to Smoker’s Widow

“Smokers, tobacco, both winners in early Engle cases”

Jury Rules For Plaintiff in First Phase of Retrial After Reversal of $145 Billion Punitive Damages Award

After Reversal of $145 Billion Class Action Punitive Damages Award, Florida Smokers Seek Punitive Damages in Individual Suits

Plaintiffs’ Attorneys Win $218 Million Fee Award for Helping Obtain a Punitive Damages Verdict that Was Reversed on Appeal

Maui is one of my favorite vacation spots. I go to enjoy the island’s natural beauty and balmy tropical weather. But this report from the Maui News suggests that other mainlanders visit Maui’s sunny shores in search of something else: punitive damages. A jury there has awarded $43 million in punitive damages (on top of $10 million in compensatory damages) to a group of investors who claim they were defrauded in connection with their investments in a lakeside development in Tennessee. The defendant is a Chicago banker who resides part-time on Maui. The story says that locals cannot remember a larger civil verdict in Maui.

Bloomberg is reporting that a trial judge in Florida has reduced a $300 million verdict against Philip Morris to $38.9 million. The jury’s original award consisted of $56.6 million in compensatory damages and $244 in punitive damages. I haven’t yet seen any breakdown of the reduced award in terms of compensatory damages versus punitive damages.

Related posts:

Florida Judge Says $244M Punitive Damages Award Will Be Overturned

Bloomberg reports that a Philadelphia jury has awarded $6 million in punitive damages against Wyeth (which is now owned by Pfizer) for injuries allegedly caused by its hormone replacement drugs. For those of you scoring at home, this is the fifth punitive damages award against Pfizer/Wyeth/Upjohn arising out of hormone replacement drugs. Three of those have been in Philadelphia, and a fourth Philadelphia lawsuit on the same issue is already underway.

Related posts:

Trial Judge Reduces $75M Punitive Damages Award to $5.6M in Pfizer Litigation

More Punitive Damages Against Pfizer in Prempro Litigation: Philadelphia Jury Awards $28 million

A Mixed Bag For Pfizer On Prempro Punitive Damages

Jury Awards Undisclosed Amount of Punitive Damages Against Pfizer in Prempro Litigation

Arkansas District Court Vacates $27 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Wyeth and UpJohn

Nevada Judge Cuts $99 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Wyeth

The Daily Business Review (via Law.com) reports that a Florida trial judge has stated his intention to overturn a $244 million punitive damages award to an individual smoker. The judge said the award was “shocking” and was the result of passion and anger by the jury. He did not issue a formal ruling, nor did he say what amount of punitive damages he would allow.

Related posts:

Florida Jury Awards $244 Million in Punitive Damages to Smoker

In the past two years Pfizer has been whacked with a series of large punitive damages awards in lawsuits claiming that its hormone replacement drugs cause breast cancer. One of the largest of those punitive damages awards was a $75 million award against Wyeth (which Pfizer acquired in October 2009) in a Philadelphia case involving $3.7 million in compensatory damages.

The Legal Intelligencer reports that the trial judge reduced that punitive damages award to $5.6 million, roughly 1.5 times the amount of the compensatory damages award. The plaintiffs plan to appeal.

So far, Pfizer’s lawyers have been pretty successful in reducing the big punitive damages awards in these cases, but they haven’t been able to knock them out entirely. They got a $27 million punitive damages award in Arkansas vacated and remanded for a new trial, and a $99 million award cut down to $35 million in Nevada.

Related posts:

More Punitive Damages Against Pfizer in Prempro Litigation: Philadelphia Jury Awards $28 million

A Mixed Bag For Pfizer On Prempro Punitive Damages

Jury Awards Undisclosed Amount of Punitive Damages Against Pfizer in Prempro Litigation

Arkansas District Court Vacates $27 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Wyeth and UpJohn

Nevada Judge Cuts $99 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Wyeth