At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at law, the loss must involve damage to property, or mental or physical injury; pure economic loss is rarely recognised for the award of damages.
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award.
BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), was a United States Supreme Court case limiting punitive damages under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In United States law, treble damages is a term that indicates that a statute permits a court to triple the amount of the actual/compensatory damages to be awarded to a prevailing plaintiff. Treble damages are a multiple of, and not an addition to, actual damages in some instances. On occasion, however, as in California Civil Code § 1719, they are additive. When such damages are multiplicative and a person received an award of $100 for an injury, a court applying treble damages would raise the award to $300. Some statutes mandate awards of treble damages for all violations. Examples of statutes with mandatory treble damages provisions are the Clayton Antitrust Act and RICO. Some statutes allow for an award of treble damages only if there is a showing that the violation was willful. For example, "up to three times the amount found or assessed" may be awarded by a court in the United States for willful patent infringement. The idea behind the creation of such damages is that they will encourage citizens to sue for violations that are harmful to society in general, and deter the violator from committing future violations.
Insurance bad faith is a tort unique to the law of the United States that an insurance company commits by violating the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing" which automatically exists by operation of law in every insurance contract. In common law countries such as Australia and the UK, the issue is usually framed in the context of a failure of the duty of utmost good faith originating in English insurance law, which does not constitute a tort but rather provides the insured a contractual remedy unique to insurance law.
Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 549 U.S. 346 (2007), 556 U.S. 178 (2009), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits punitive damages, and ordered a lower court to reconsider its damages awards on that basis.
Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749 (1985), was a Supreme Court case which held that a credit reporting agency could be liable in defamation if it carelessly relayed false information that a business had declared bankruptcy when in fact it had not.
Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424 (2001), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the standard of review that Federal Appeal Courts should use when examining punitive damages awards.
Browning-Ferris Industries v. Kelco Disposal, 492 U.S. 257 (1989), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable fines does not apply to punitive-damage awards in civil cases when the United States is not a party.
Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U.S. 251 (1946), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court allowing an action to recover compensatory damages under the antitrust statutes. The jury had returned a verdict for $120,000 in petitioner's favor, covering a five-year period where plaintiff suffered due to respondents' antitrust conspiracy. The trial court, sitting in the Northern District of Illinois, gave judgment for treble damages, as prescribed by § 4 of the Clayton Act. The 7th Circuit reversed on the sole ground that the evidence of damage was not sufficient for submission to the jury, and directed the entry of judgment for respondents non obstante veredicto. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the evidence of damage was sufficient to support the verdict. Respondents argued that any measure of damages would be too speculative and uncertain to afford an accurate measure of the amount of the damage. The Supreme Court disagreed, not wanting to let the respondent defeat a remedy because its antitrust violation was so effective and complete. The Court held that the jury could return a verdict for the plaintiffs, even though damages could not be measured with the exactness which would otherwise have been possible, so long as the jury made a "just and reasonable estimate of the damage based on relevant data". The judgment of the district court was affirmed and the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed.
Ronald E. Nehring was a justice of the Utah Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court in 2003 by Utah Governor Michael Leavitt, and he retired in 2015.
Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Association, Inc. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6 (1970), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that using the word "blackmail" in a newspaper article "was no more than rhetorical hyperbole" and that finding such usage as libel "would subvert the most fundamental meaning of a free press" guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The ruling also touched on the plaintiff's status as a public figure.
Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524 (1989), is a United States Supreme Court case involving freedom of the press and privacy rights. After The Florida Star newspaper revealed the full name of a rape victim it got from a police report, the victim sued for damages. State law made it illegal for a publication to print a rape victim's name, and the victim was awarded damages. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled the imposition of damages for truthfully publishing public information violates the First Amendment.
Harte-Hanks Communications Inc. v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657 (1989), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States supplied an additional journalistic behavior that constitutes actual malice as first discussed in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964). In the case, the Court held that departure from responsible reporting and unreasonable reporting conduct alone were not sufficient to award a public figure damages in a libel case. However, the Court also ruled that if reporters wrote with reckless disregard for the truth, which included ignoring obvious sources for their report, plaintiffs could be awarded compensatory damages on the grounds of actual malice.
The Tawney Case In 2006, plaintiffs, Estate of Garrison G. Tawney, Richard L. Ashley, Janice E. Cooper, Clifford R. Cooper, Myrtle Jones, Larry G. Parker, and John W. Parker, all oil and natural gas royalty owners of West Virginia, filed suit against Columbia Natural Resources (CNR) claiming CNR had "fraudulently, intentionally, and knowingly" underpaid royalties by deducting post-production costs and by entering into futures contracts that resulted in "below-market-value sale prices." CNR routinely subtracted fees for gathering and transporting the gas to interstate pipelines, as well as, assessed volume deductions. The Plaintiffs argued the deductions were improper under the leases, which consisted of "varying language on calculation of royalties."
Naugle v. Philip Morris was a landmark 2009 court case in which a jury awarded the plaintiff Lucinda Naugle $300 million. The award included $56.6 million in compensatory damages for medical expenses and $244 million in punitive damages. At the time, the verdict was the largest award given to an individual suing a tobacco company, and was featured on NBC, ABC, 60 Minutes, and The New York Times. In 2012, the verdict amount for punitive damages was reduced to $36.8 million.
Smithfield Foods has been sued multiple times related to the disposal of hog waste using anaerobic lagoons. State governments have responded to the suits against Smithfield and similar litigation by strengthening ”Right-to-Farm” laws.
Republic of Sudan v. Harrison, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. The Court held that civil service of a lawsuit against the government of Sudan was invalid because the civil complaints and summons had been sent to the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C. rather than to the Sudanese Foreign Minister in Khartoum.
Opati v. Republic of Sudan, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act with its 2008 amendments, whether plaintiffs in federal lawsuits against foreign countries may seek punitive damages for cause of actions prior to enactment of the amended law, with the specific case dealing with victims and their families from the 1998 United States embassy bombings. The Court ruled unanimously in May 2020 that punitive damages can be sought from foreign nations in such cases for preenactment conduct.
TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443 (1993), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which upheld the decision of the West Virginia state court awarding $19,000 in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to the plaintiff. Although multiple justices recognized that the punitive damages were 526 times the compensatory damages, the Court held a "general concern of reasonableness" should guide courts in determining constitutionally acceptable damages under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
