Supreme Ct Ponders Punitive Limit
Monday, December 16th, 2002 LitigationThe Supreme Court has been wrestling since the late 1980's with whether, and on what basis, to place limits on punitive damage awards that are many times the amount of the actual injury. After a spirited argument in an appeal by the State Farm, Mutual Automobile Insurance Company of a punitive damage award that was 145 times the actual, or compensatory damages, consensus on the court appeared as elusive as ever. The case, which has been embraced by the corporate antipunitive damages lobby as a symbol of everything wrong with the tort system, concerned State Farm's behavior after an automobile accident in Utah in 1981. Its policyholder, Curtis Campbell, was involved in a multicar accident in which one other driver was killed and another seriously injured.
