Publications

As many of you know, courts in the U.S. have long struggled concerning not only when to award punitive damages (in product liability cases many states use a “reckless disregard for the safety of product users” standard) but how judges and juries should calculate punitive damages (see Update #1 which discussed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in State Farm v. Campbell that “few [punitive damages] awards exceeding a single-digit ratio” to compensable damages awarded are proper). The California Supreme Court recently decided two cases concerning what evidence could be considered in determining the appropriate amount of punitive damages. Although not product liability cases, the rulings will be applicable in such cases.