McPadden v. WalMart Stores East, L.P., No. 14-cv-475, awarded more than $31 million to a former Wal-Mart employee who had worked for the company as a pharmacist. The plaintiff sued for discrimination and retaliation after she was terminated as discipline for losing a pharmacy key. As is common in these cases, the news stories were technically accurate but left a misleading impression of what happened.
Continue Reading Jury Awards Over $31 Million To Former Wal-Mart Employee—But Wal-Mart Probably Won’t Have To Pay Most Of It
Delaware Superior Court Cuts Punitive Damages In Transvaginal Mesh Case
Last week, we posted about a $10 million award of punitive damages in a product liability action against a manufacturer of hip implants. We explained our view that the award was excessive, in part because hundreds of similar cases are pending across the country.
We’ve also been following a much larger set of cases against medical device manufacturers—those involving injuries allegedly resulting from the use of surgical mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence. An astonishing 85,000 cases against surgical mesh manufacturers have been centralized for pre-trial proceedings in federal district court in West Virginia, and thousands of additional cases have been filed in state courts. As may be inevitable with so many turns of the Roulette wheel, a few plaintiffs have hit the jackpot.
The biggest verdict so far came last May, when a Delaware jury returned a $100 million award against Boston Scientific—comprising $25 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. In an October 9 order, the trial court in Barbra v. Boston Scientific Corp. reduced the verdict by a factor of ten—leaving Boston Scientific facing a judgment of $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $7.5 million in punitive damages. That’s obviously a substantial improvement, but in our view the reduced award remains quite excessive.
Continue Reading Delaware Superior Court Cuts Punitive Damages In Transvaginal Mesh Case
Second Circuit Holds 4:1 Ratio Excessive And Orders Remittitur To 2:1 In Hostile-Environment Case
In late December, the Second Circuit released a significant and interesting decision on excessiveness of punitive damages—and we say that not just because we represented the defendants in the case.
Turley v. ISG Lackawanna, Inc. involved racial harassment of a steel worker by his fellow employees. The plaintiff alleged that his employer and its parent did not respond adequately to the harassment. A jury agreed and awarded the plaintiff a total of $1.25 million in compensatory damages—all for emotional distress—and $24 million in punitive damages against the corporate defendants. The district court determined that the punitive damages were excessive and ordered a remittitur to approximately $5 million.
Although rejecting the defendants’ other arguments, the Second Circuit agreed with defendants that the punitive damages as remitted remained excessive.
National Law Journal Recognizes Evan Tager As A “Litigation Trailblazer”
We congratulate our Editor-in-Chief Evan Tager for his inclusion in the National Law Journal’s inaugural list of fifty “Litigation Trailblazers and Pioneers.” The NLJ recognized Evan for, among other things, his groundbreaking efforts to limit punitive damages. It highlighted his work with Andy Frey in BMW v. Gore, the the seminal case in which
SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA STRIKES DOWN PUNITIVE DAMAGES AWARD ON RES JUDICATA GROUNDS
The U.S. Postal Service advertises that “shipping isn’t complicated.” Taking a page from the Postal Service’s book, the Supreme Court of Louisiana on Tuesday said much the same thing about res judicata. In a concise unanimous decision, the court reversed an award of punitive damages against Exxon on res judicata grounds. The court held that a defendant may not be required to relitigate whether its conduct warrants punitive damages after a jury found in its favor on that very question in an earlier case involving the same plaintiff.
Continue Reading SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA STRIKES DOWN PUNITIVE DAMAGES AWARD ON RES JUDICATA GROUNDS
When Is A 99.6% Reduction Of A Punitive Damages Award Not Enough? When The Original Award Was $9 Billion And There Are Thousands Of Other Plaintiffs Seeking Comparable Awards.
A jury in the Western District of Louisiana made headlines last spring when it awarded a stunning $9 billion in punitive damages to a plaintiff who contended that the diabetes drug Actos caused his bladder cancer. Last week, the district court cut the award by 99.6 % to approximately $37 million. Despite the impressive scale of the reduction, in our view the remitted award remains unconstitutionally excessive. Furthermore, the district court’s lengthy opinion reveals significant errors of reasoning that we hope the Fifth Circuit will correct on appeal. We address three of them here.
Continue Reading When Is A 99.6% Reduction Of A Punitive Damages Award Not Enough? When The Original Award Was $9 Billion And There Are Thousands Of Other Plaintiffs Seeking Comparable Awards.
May A Defendant Seek JMOL On Punitive Liability Based On A Standard Different From The One Reflected In The Jury Instructions?
We’ve been following the post-trial proceedings in Allen v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc., a product-liability action involving the diabetes drug Actos. The case garnered headlines earlier this year when the jury awarded an astounding $9 billion in punitive damages against the two defendants.
On August 28, the district court in the Western District of Louisiana issued a ruling denying the defendants’ motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on liability for punitive damages and other issues. Despite the suggestion of some news reports that the defendants are now on the hook for the $9 billion, the district court has not yet ruled on the defendants’ separate motion for a new trial under Rule 59, which argues among other things that the punitive damages are excessive.
In this post, I want to address a significant flaw in the district court’s reasoning concerning the defendants’ challenge to punitive liability. Although the error did not affect the decision’s outcome, the issue arises in other cases with some frequency and could make a difference in this case on appeal.Continue Reading May A Defendant Seek JMOL On Punitive Liability Based On A Standard Different From The One Reflected In The Jury Instructions?
West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals Upholds $32 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Nursing Home
We recently posted about the decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in Manor Care Inc. v. Douglas, — S.E.2d —-, 2014 WL 2835831 (W. Va. June 18, 2014), to cut a multimillion-dollar punitive award by more than half in a case against a Charleston nursing home. In our prior post, which is available here, we commented on the court’s decision to reduce the punitive damages proportionately (from $80 million to about $32 million) after it reduced the compensatory damages from $11.5 million to $4.6 million.
The West Virginia court’s decision to afford a proportionate reduction of the punitive damages after vacating part of the compensatory damages raises is noteworthy, but it may be even more striking that the court refused to reduce the $32 million punishment any further. In an opinion that shows little inclination to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance that high awards of compensatory damages require lower ratios, the West Virginia Supreme held that the 7:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages was not excessive. The decision suggests that large companies hit with very large verdicts in West Virginia state court may have difficulty obtaining any reduction of the punitive damages as long as the ratio is lower than 10:1 and the court deems the conduct to be highly reprehensible.Continue Reading West Virginia Supreme Court Of Appeals Upholds $32 Million Punitive Damages Award Against Nursing Home
A Report On The Ninth Circuit Oral Argument In Arizona v. ASARCO
Earlier this month, our colleague Evan Tager posted about Arizona v. ASARCO, in which the Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc to consider how courts should review punitive damages for excessiveness in Title VII cases. Evan’s prior posts on the case are here and here. On June 18, the en banc panel heard oral argument.
Continue Reading A Report On The Ninth Circuit Oral Argument In Arizona v. ASARCO