A notice this morning from SSRN reports on a recent article in the Journal of Legal Studies by Joni Hersch and Kip Viscusi, "Punitive Damages: How Judges and Juries Respond." Here's the abstract:
This paper presents the first empirical analysis that demonstrates that juries differ from judges in awarding punitive damages. Our review of punitive damages awards of $100 million or more identified 63 such awards, of which juries made 95 percent. These jury awards are highly unpredictable and are not significantly correlated with compensatory damages. Using data on jury and bench verdicts from the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996, we find that juries are significantly more likely to award punitive damages than are judges and award higher levels of punitive damages. Jury awards are also less strongly related to compensatory damages. The differential effect of juries is most pronounced among the largest awards.
Juries also tend to award higher compensatory damages, which in turn boost the punitive damages award. The findings are robust with respect to controlling for self-selection of jury or bench trial."
You can download a version of the article from SSRN here.
You might also look at Professor Viscusi's fascinating article posted on SSRN about "The Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards." That article is available here. Among much other fascinating material, Professor Viscusi reports that just two states -- California and Texas -- account for more than half of the $100 million or greater punitive damages awards in recent years and that 90 percent of all those awards, from whatever state, would be reduced under the formula articulated in State Farm v. Campbell.
TSU
