This Article maintains that capped compensatory damages in State law tort actions also caps the Gore punitive damage analysis. This Article contributes to existing scholarship on state law compensatory damage caps and the Gore punitive damage analysis by identifying the defect the former produces in the latter. This Article argues that Gore’s second guidepost is based on a false premise as it applies in States that have capped compensatory damage awards: that the plaintiff has been fully reimbursed for actual losses. Gore identifies three guideposts to determine whether a jury’s award of punitive damages are excessive: (1) the degree of reprehensibility of defendant’s conduct (2) the disparity between compensatory and the punitive damages and (3) the difference between punitive damages and civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.
Gore rests, in part, on the “understandable relationship” between a civil jury’s award of compensatory and punitive damages.
0 kommentar(er)
