An Empirical Study of Punitive Damages

The Decision to Award Punitive Damages: An Empirical Study

Empirical studies have consistently shown that punitive damages are rarely awarded, with rates of about 3 to 5 percent of plaintiff trial wins. Using the 2005 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Civil Justice Survey, this article shows that knowing in which cases plaintiffs sought punitive damages transforms the picture of punitive damages. Not accounting for whether punitive damages wer...

Do Punitive Damages Promote Deterrence?

The paper explores the deterrent effect of punitive damages when capital investment is endogenous to the legal rule. Irrespective of the level of damages, firms can reduce their expected liabilities by either increasing safety (the law’s intended goal) or reducing wealth exposed to liability. We show that punitive damages can exacerbate this wealth reduction effect and thereby reduce deterrence...

Punitive Damages and Valuing Harm

A Theory of Wealth and Punitive Damages

One recurring problem in the punitive damages case law is the degree to which the wealth of the defendant should matter in the determination of a punitive award. Intuition suggests that the wealthy should pay more than the non-wealthy. On the other hand, the view has been expressed that wealth should not play a role in the determination of a punitive award. I will use examples to develop severa...

Punitive Damages and Private Ordering Fetishism

Let me begin with some words of warm thanks, first to Professors Michael Krauss and David Owen for engaging my work with attention and interest and, second, to the editors at PENNumbra, for soliciting my reactions. This Reply’s principal goal is to clarify some areas in which I think Professors Krauss and Owen misunderstood some aspects of my proposed framework for restructuring punitive damage...