Punitive Damages Make Our Families Safer

Rarely awarded, punitive damages punish the most egregious behavior and force business executives to put safety first or suffer the consequences.

As in the case of Vioxx, where a Texas jury found Merck guilty of knowingly pushing a deadly drug, jurors award punitive damages only when the behavior was so reckless that corporate executives clearly need an incentive not to commit the same offense twice.

Limits on punitive damages are routine in anti-consumer proposals to rewrite state tort law—whether for product liability, medical malpractice, or any other area of law. Yet, evidence shows that these damages are rarely awarded in tort cases and are generally proportionate to the injuries in the case. Limits on punitive damages are an unnecessary intrusion into a legal area best handled on the state level, where the courts already severely limit verdict amounts if they are excessive.

What are Punitive Damages?

• Punitive damages are damages awarded to punish wrongful behavior by a defendant. Often, punitive damages are awarded in cases where there is evidence that the defendant intentionally caused the injury, such as fraud, a physician who sexually assualts a patient, or a corporation that knowingly polluted a town's groundwater.
  
  
• Punitive damages serve to punish wrongdoers who a jury decides acted immorally, rather than just negligently, and to deter others from acting in a similar fashion.
  
  
• Manufacturers and others who are afraid of punitive damages are more likely to act prudently to improve the safety of their products by better design and clear warnings about possible hazards.

Punitive Damages are Rare

• The most recent U.S. Department of Justice's analysis of verdicts in the 75 largest counties found punitive damages were awarded to only 6% of plaintiff winners in 2001. Thus, 94% of plaintiff winners received no punitive damages. The median punitive award was a mere $50,000.
  
  In cases involving medical malpractice, punitive damages were awarded to only 1%-4% of plaintiff winners, with the median award being $250,000.
  
  
• A 2005 U.S. Department of Justice report said "punitive damages are reserved almost exclusively for tort claims in which the defendant's conduct was grossly negligent or intentional. Punitive damages tend to be awarded infrequently in tort trials."
  

Punitive Damages are Awarded Appropriately

• Professor Theodore Eisenberg of Cornell Law School writes in his study, The Predictability of Punitive Damages: “It is easier to predict when punitive damages will not be awarded than when they will be. Unless the case involves an intentional tort or a business-related tort (such as employment claims), punitive damages will almost never be awarded.”
  

September 1, 2005