Punitive Damages by Numbers: Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker

Variability in Punitive Damages: Empirically Assessing Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker

Lex Punit Mendacium: punitive damages and Bhasin v Hrynew

Punitive damages are a controversial remedy in Canadian and non-Canadian law. Some scholars have gone so far as to argue that punitive damages are entirely inconsistent with the goals and principles of private law and ought to be abolished. Notwithstanding these criticisms, the Supreme Court of Canada has treated punitive damages as a relatively uncontroversial private law remedy. However, the ...

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

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...