The JD Supra Blog features this post by attorneys at Butler Snow offering advice based on recent jury verdicts in punitive damages cases: “Recent cases highlight strategies to defeat punitive damages even when compensatory liability may be difficult to avoid.”

Earlier this month a jury in federal court in Missouri awarded $15 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to a peach farm that alleged its orchards were damaged by Bayer’s weedkiller Dicamba. 

Dicamba was made by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018.  This litigation is unrelated to litigation involving the weedkiller Roundup, also made by Monsanto. 

Bayer plans to challenge this verdict on appeal, per Reuters.

FiercePharma reports that a Philadelphia trial court has reduced the $8 billion punitive damages award against Johnson & Johnson to $6.8 million.  The case involves J&J’s alleged failure to warn about the potential side effects of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal.

According to the story, the court found that the punitive damages award was grossly disproportionate to the compensatory damages award of $680,000.  Johnson & Johnson says it still plans to appeal the award as reduced.  No doubt the plaintiffs will also appeal from the reduction of the award.

Law 360 reports that a Los Angeles jury deliberated less than an hour before awarding $50 million in punitive damages (on top of $8.25 million in compensatory damages) against billionaire FilmOn founder Alki David.  By my count, this is the largest of three punitive damages award against David this year.  (See earlier reports here and here.)

The New York Daily News reports on a ruling by a federal district court judge in Washington D.C., ordering Iran to pay $30 million in compensatory damages and $150 million in punitive damages to a Washington Post journalist and his family for psychological and physical abuse inflicted on the reporter during 18 months of imprisonment. 

As with the many other huge punitive damages awards awarded against Iran (see here for example), it is unclear whether the plaintiff will every collect anything.

The Washington Post reports that a jury in Phoenix has awarded $8 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages against Steven Gore, who owns a facility that handled donated human remains.  The plaintiffs alleged that Gore committed fraud by representing that the remains would be used for medical research, when in fact some of the bodies were used for military testing or sold to third parties.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports on a jury award of $9.2 million in compensatory damages and $74.2 million in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris in a lawsuit brought by the surviving spouse of a smoker who died from respiratory disease.  According to the article, this is the first known trial involving claims brought by a same-sex surviving spouse in the decades of Florida tobacco litigation (the so-called “Engle progeny litigation”).

Law 360 reports (subscription required) that FilmOn founder Alki David has been hit for $4.35 million in punitive damages in a lawsuit alleging that he committed sexual battery against a former employee.  The jury awarded $650,000 in compensatory damages (resulting in a ratio of 6.7 to 1)

David previously lost an $11 million verdict to another former employee who made similar claims.

The BBC News reports that a jury in Philadelphia has awarded $8 billion in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit over the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal. 

The plaintiff is a man who alleged that he grew breasts as a result of taking Risperdal and was not warned about that possible side effect.  A jury in 2015 awarded $1.75 million in compensatory damages, which the trial court later reduced to $680,000 and barred punitive damages.  The state appellate court reversed the ruling on punitive damages and sent the case back for a retrial on that issue. After this verdict, the case is undoubtedly heading back up on appeal again.

Johnson & Johnson is no stranger to colossal punitive damages awards.  The company has been battered by a series of adverse jury verdicts in cases involving its pelvic mesh implants and talc products, not to mention a billion dollar verdict in a Texas case involving hip implants.  Oh, and it’s fighting a $572 million award by an Oklahoma judge who found the company responsible for that state’s opioid epidemic.

The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed about the case entitled An $8 Billion Drug Heist.

This post is a bit tardy, but here’s a link to the July 26 L.A. Times story about a ruling that reduced the $2 billion Roundup punitive damages award to $87 million (and reduced the $55 million compensatory damages award to $17.3 million).