Greedy Trial Lawyer
Supreme Court Remains In The Standardless Dimension
The United States Supreme Court has taken away a $79.5 Million punitive damages award against Philip Morris using words that rise barely above gibberish.
The 5 - 4 Court decision says it was acting to prevent a standardless dimension to exist in the award of punitive damages. This court entered the standardless dimension awhile back. Earth to Chief Justice Roberts: when do you fellows plan to return to the planet?
Court Nixes Award Against Philip Morris
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court threw out a $79.5 million award that a jury had ordered a cigarette maker to pay to a smoker's widow, a ruling that could bode well for other businesses seeking stricter limits on big-dollar verdicts.The 5-4 decision Tuesday was a victory for Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA, which contested an Oregon Supreme Court decision upholding the jury's verdict.
Yet the decision did not address a key argument made by Philip Morris and its supporters across a wide range of businesses - that the size of the award was unconstitutionally large. They had hoped the court would limit the amount that can be awarded in punitive damage cases.
Instead, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the award to Mayola Williams could not stand because a jury may punish a defendant only for the harm done to the person who is suing, not to others whose cases were not before it.
"To permit punishment for injuring a nonparty victim would add a near standardless dimension to the punitive damages question," Breyer said. [But, the Court said it was perfectly proper for the jury to consider the widespread harm caused by the outrageous conduct in deciding whether to award punitive damages.]
The court instead put forward a principle that defendants can be punished only for the harm they do to plaintiffs, which state courts already adhere to widely, [some] lawyers said.
"There is almost no court in this country that has been applying a standard that you punish someone for harm done to others," said Arthur Bryant, executive director of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. "I don't think it's a setback at all."
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.greedytriallawyer.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/481