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.

This is one of the strangest punitive damages stories we have seen in a while.  The Associated Press reports (via Long Island Newsday) that the New York Court of Appeals has reversed an award of $250,000 in punitive damages to a plaintiff who claimed he was terrorized by the presence of frogs in his yard.

According to the story, the plaintiff claimed he developed a fear of frogs as a child, when he was chased by a man holding bullfrogs.  Decades later, his ranidaphobia resurfaced when some nearby construction allegedly turned his 40-acre property near Buffalo into a wetland, attracting hordes of frogs that blocked his driveway and his front door.  It’s almost like they knew he was afraid of them!

Based on this tale of woe, the plaintiff and his attorney managed to persuade a jury to award $1.6 million in compensatory damages plus and additional $250,000 in punitive damages.  The Court of Appeals, however reversed the punitive damages, finding no evidence that the defendant acted with a conscious disregard for plaintiff’s well-being. 

The Associated Press reports that the plaintiffs’ attorneys in a Nevada lawsuit against a healthcare provideder have asked the jury for an award of $2.5 billion in punitive damages.  The jury has already awarded $24 million in compensatory damages to the two plaintiffs, who were both infected with hepatitis during routine outpatient endoscopy procedures.

Plaintiffs in the Vegas hepatitis litigation have already rung the bell for $500 million in punitive damages.  In that case, the plaintiffs were sued two drug companies that made and distributed propofol, the anesthetic drug used during the procedure. The plaintiffs alleged that the companies supplied the drugs in vials that were larger than necessary, tempting the healthcare providers to re-use the vials on multiple patients, even though the vials were labeled for individual use.

In this latest case, the plaintiffs’ request for $2.5 billion raises the question: why would a plaintiffs’ attorney ask for an amount of punitive damages that is more than 100 times the amount of the plaintiff’s actual harm, when such an award would surely be stricken as unconstitutionally excessive?  Perhaps it’s because he read “Punitive Damages, How Juries Decide,” by Cass Sunstein and others.  Sunstein found that the most significant predictor for a large punitive damages award is a large request.  That seems to hold true no matter how large the request is. So the plaintiffs’ attorney may be thinking that he won’t really get 2.5 billion, but he’ll end up getting more, all other things being equal, than he would have gotten by asking for something more reasonable.

Last week, the Louisiana Court of Appeal issued this opinion (Rachal v. Brouillette) increasing a jury’s award of punitive damages against a drunk driver from $100,000 to $500,000.  This opinion caught our eye because the idea of an appellate court increasing a jury’s award of punitive damages is literally unheard of in California.  Sometimes a California appellate court will disagree with a trial court’s decision to reduce a jury’s award, and will reinstate all or part of the original award.  But a California court would never increase the punitive damages above what the jury awarded.

Last November we reported about a Los Angeles jury’s award of $777,000 in compensatory damages and $7.7 million in punitive damages in a pregnancy discrimination suit brought by a former model on “The Price Is Right.”  We predicted at the time that the punitive damages award was not likely to survive through posttrial motions and appeal.

Our predictions haven’t always come true, but this time we got it right.  Law 360 reports (subscription required) that the trial judge has vacated the entire verdict and ordered a complete new trial on all issues.  The judge, Kevin C. Brazile, ruled that he had incorrectly instructed the jury on the standard to be applied in determining whether the producers of The Price is Right discriminated against the plaintiff.  The instructions failed to reflect the California Supreme Court’s recent holding in Harris v. City of Santa Monica, which requires a showing that the employer’s action was “substantially motivated” by discrimination.

Related posts:

Los Angeles jury awards $7.7M in punitive damages to former “The Price is Right” model; try to guess the final award without going over

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that a Sacramento jury has awarded $23 million in punitive damages in an elder abuse and wrongful death lawsuit against Emeritus Corp., the operator of an assisted living facility.  The jury also awarded $3.9 million in compensatory damages for pain and suffering, which the trial judge reduced to $250,000 under the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA).

If this story sounds familiar, you may recall that a Sacramento jury awarded $28 million in punitive damages in another nursing home case back in 2010.