Punitive Damages in Financial Injury Jury Verdicts: Executive Summary

This report provides the technical details of an Institute for Civil Justice analysis of trends and patterns in punitive damage awards in financial injury cases in selected jurisdictions during the period 1985 through 1994. The jurisdictions include all state trial courts of general jurisdiction in the states of California and New York; Cook County, Illinois (Chicago); the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area; and Harris County, Texas (Houston). These data are supplemented by information obtained from the Administrative Office of the Alabama Courts for verdicts reached in that state’s trial courts of general jurisdiction during the period 1992 to 1997. The study also estimates what percentage of the financial injury punitive awards in the database would have been affected by caps of various sizes and how the caps would have affected the total amount of punitive damages awarded in such cases.