Insurance,
Civil Litigation
Mar. 24, 2017
'Special justification' and punitive damages
More clamor for larger awards of punitive damages? The "battle" may turn on the presence (or not) of a "particularly egregious act" or "extreme reprehensibility."
Rex Heeseman
JAMS
555 W 5th St Fl 32
Los Angeles , CA 90013-1055
Phone: (213) 253-9772
Fax: (213) 620-0100
Email: rheeseman@jamsdar.com
Stanford Univ Law School
Rex Heeseman retired from the Los Angeles Count Superior Court bench in 2014. He is at JAMS, Los Angeles. Besides speaking at various MCLE programs, he co-authors The Rutter Group's practice guide on "Insurance Litigation." From 2002 to 2015, he was an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School.
With reference to an award of punitive damages, the blockbuster opinions of BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), and State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), stressed the "reprehensibility" of the defendant's conduct, and the comparison between the actual or compensatory damages and the punitive damages (aka the "ratio" or the "multiplier"). Over the past 10 years in this key area of law, almost all appellate activity in Californ...
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