Utah ruling turns juries into regulators, insurers contend. (Late Breaking News).(United States Supreme Court hears case of $145 mn punitive damage award against State Farm)(Legal Beat)(Brief Article)

National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, August, 2002 by Brostoff, Steven

State regulation of insurance would be effectively undermined if a $145 million punitive damage award against State Farm is allowed to stand, four major property-casualty trade associations told the United States Supreme Court. In a brief filed with the high court in the case of State Farm v.

Campbell, the associations said that unless the award is overturned, a single jury in any state could become, in effect, a national insurance regulator. "A state may not extend its insurance regulatory power extraterritorially to reach conduct occurring outside its boundaries," the associations said in their brief. The brief was filed jointly by the Des Planes, Ill.-based National Association of Independent Insurers, the Indianapolis-based National Association of...

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