Just about a week after suffering its third punitive award in pelvic-mesh litigation, Johnson & Johnson found itself on the wrong end of a $105 million punitive award—close to 20 times the $5.4 million compensatory award—in litigation alleging that its iconic talcum powder causes ovarian cancer in women.
Continue Reading Punitive Damages Overkill Redux: J&J Hit With Another Massive Disproportionate Punitive Award In Talc Litigation
Punitive Damages Overkill: J&J Hit With Still Another Disproportionate Punitive Award In Pelvic-Mesh Litigation
As early as 1967, Judge Friendly worried about the phenomenon of punitive damages overkill in mass tort litigation. Fifty years later, the problem persists.
Last week, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jury awarded a plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $17.5 million in punitive damages—seven times the compensatory damages—in the latest of a large series of cases alleging that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon had failed to warn about the risks of its pelvic-mesh device. In previous cases, juries had imposed punitive awards of $5 million, $7 million, and $10 million.
Continue Reading Punitive Damages Overkill: J&J Hit With Still Another Disproportionate Punitive Award In Pelvic-Mesh Litigation
Bankruptcy Court Imposes Massively Disproportionate $45 Million Punitive Exaction, Then Plays Santa Claus With $40 Million Of It
A bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of California recently issued a decision that is sure to raise appellate eyebrows.
Concluding in In re Sundquist that the defendant bank had violated the automatic stay by foreclosing on the home of a bankrupt mortgagor and enraged by what it perceived to be heavy-handed behavior both before and after the stay violation, the court awarded the plaintiffs $1,074,581.50 in compensatory damages and ordered the defendant to pay a whopping $45 million in punitive damages—i.e., nearly 42 times the quite substantial compensatory award.
But concerned that such a massive amount of punitive damages would be a windfall to the plaintiffs, the judge ordered the plaintiffs to pay $40 million, minus applicable taxes, to two non-profit organizations whose stated mission is to advance the interests of consumers in litigation and bankruptcy proceedings—the National Consumer Law Center and the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center—and the five California state law schools. Specifically, the judge decided to bestow $10 million each (before taxes) on the two consumer law centers and $4 million each (before taxes) on the five law schools.
Continue Reading Bankruptcy Court Imposes Massively Disproportionate $45 Million Punitive Exaction, Then Plays Santa Claus With $40 Million Of It
Mayer Brown Submits Amicus Brief For Chamber Of Commerce, American Tort Reform Association, And American Insurance Association In Eighth Circuit Appeal Involving Proper Application Of Punitive Damages Guideposts
Seemingly minor legal issues sometimes can have a surprisingly significant effect. That is particularly true with the ratio guidepost because the effect of any dispute about the guidepost’s application is literally multiplied. We recently filed an amicus brief on behalf of a group of organizations in an Eighth Circuit appeal that proves the point: Dziadek v. The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, No. 16-4070.
Continue Reading Mayer Brown Submits Amicus Brief For Chamber Of Commerce, American Tort Reform Association, And American Insurance Association In Eighth Circuit Appeal Involving Proper Application Of Punitive Damages Guideposts
Kansas City Gives St. Louis A Run For The Money–Literally
St. Louis and Kansas City have long been cross-state baseball rivals. Who can forget the 1985 I-70 World Series?
So it is hardly surprising that on the eve of St. Louis being named by the American Tort Reform Association as the number one Judicial Hellhole in the country, juries in Jackson County (home to Kansas City) would stake their own claim to that dubious distinction by returning two jaw-dropping punitive awards in consecutive days.
Continue Reading Kansas City Gives St. Louis A Run For The Money–Literally
Kentucky Court Of Appeals Slashes Punitive Award Against Grant Thornton
A couple of months ago, the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Grant Thornton LLP v. Yung cut a trial court’s award of punitive damages from $80 million to $20 million—reducing the punitive/compensatory ratio to 1:1.
Continue Reading Kentucky Court Of Appeals Slashes Punitive Award Against Grant Thornton
St. Louis Jury Returns Another Jaw-Dropping Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson
In recent years, St. Louis has done much to earn a place on the American Tort Reform Association’s list of judicial hell holes. Not content to rest on its laurels, the St. Louis circuit court grabbed the headlines again last week with a draw-dropping $70 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson ($67.25 million, including $65 million in punitive damages) and Imerys Talc America ($2.75 million, including $2.5 million in punitive damages) in a case alleging that J&J talcum powder caused the plaintiff’s ovarian cancer.
Continue Reading St. Louis Jury Returns Another Jaw-Dropping Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson
Ninth Circuit Substantially Reduces Punitive Award Against Walgreen
Things have been quiet in the world of punitive damages for the last few months, but two recent decisions substantially reducing punitive awards under the BMW/State Farm factors warrant mention. My colleague Miriam Nemetz will discuss one of them—Grant Thornton, LLP v. Yung—in a forthcoming post. In today’s post, I will address the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Mitri v. Walgreen Co.—a case in which my colleague Michele Odorizzi and I represented the defendant.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Substantially Reduces Punitive Award Against Walgreen
Texas Court Of Appeals Reduces $115 Million Punitive Award To A Mere Shadow Of Itself
Courts applying BMW and State Farm often emphasize the Supreme Court’s admonition that the constitutional line is not “marked by a simple mathematical formula”—typically when rejecting a defendant’s argument that the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages is indicative of an excessive award. But in Mercedes-Benz USA v. Carduco, Inc., the Texas Court of Appeals showed that this dictum is a two-way street, reducing a punitive award to a small fraction of the compensatory damages.
Continue Reading Texas Court Of Appeals Reduces $115 Million Punitive Award To A Mere Shadow Of Itself
California Supreme Court Holds That Brandt Fees Awarded Post-Trial By A Court Must Be Included In Denominator Of Punitive/Compensatory Ratio
On June 9, 2016, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Insurance Co., holding that so-called Brandt fees should be treated as compensatory damages when calculating the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages even when they are awarded by the trial court after the jury has returned its punitive damages award.
As discussed in my post about our amicus brief for the Chamber of Commerce in Nickerson, Brandt fees are the attorneys’ fees incurred by an insured in obtaining policy benefits that an insurer has been held to have denied the insured in bad faith. Accordingly, at first blush Nickerson may appear to be irrelevant outside the insurance context. But that first impression may be mistaken.
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Holds That Brandt Fees Awarded Post-Trial By A Court Must Be Included In Denominator Of Punitive/Compensatory Ratio