Business Services Industry

PUT BRAKE ON PUNITIVE AWARDS.

Business Insurance, July, 1999

A California jury's decision to order General Motors Corp. to pay $4.8 billion in punitive damages in a personal injury case demonstrates once again the glaring need for punitive damages reform in this country. Not only did this Los Angeles jury see fit to spend GM's money as if it were playing with Monopoly money, it also has squandered what little capital opponents of tort reform efforts had left.

It is far from the first time that a state court jury has handed down an outrageous punitive award -- and it certainly won't be the last -- but the GM jury verdict was breathtaking for its arrogance and foolishness. Such an award is arrogant because its size far outstrips what most people could ever need or hope to earn in a hundred lifetimes, regardless of...

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