The Changing Landscape of Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards

Alison Del Rossi () and W Viscusi

American Law and Economics Review, 2009, vol. 12, issue 1, 116-161

Abstract: This article investigates the determinants of the blockbuster punitive damages awards of at least $100 million. As of the end of 2008, there had been one hundred such awards with an average value of $3.0 billion. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in State Farm v. Campbell suggested a single-digit upper bound on the punitive damages-compensatory damages ratio, which reduced the annual number of blockbuster awards, the total annual value of blockbuster awards, and the punitive damages-compensatory damages ratio. Applying the 1:1 ratio from Exxon Shipping Co. et al. v. Baker et al. broadly would eliminate most of the blockbuster awards. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/aler/ahp018 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Changing Landscape of Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:amlawe:v:12:y:2009:i:1:p:116-161

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

American Law and Economics Review is currently edited by J.J. Prescott and Albert Choi

More articles in American Law and Economics Review from American Law and Economics Association Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().