Over the past two decades, the United States has seen a dramatic increase in the number and magnitude of punitive damages verdicts rendered by juries in civil trials. Probably the most extraordinary example is the July 2000 award of $144.8 billion in the Florida class action lawsuit brought against cigarette manufacturers. Or consider two recent verdicts against the auto manufacturer BMW in Alabama. In identical cases, argued in the same court before the same judge, one jury awarded $4 million in punitive damages, while the other awarded no punitive damages at all. In cases involving accidents, civil rights, and the environment, multimillion-dollar punitive awards have been a subject of intense controversy. But how do juries actually make decisions about punitive damages? To find out, the authors-experts in psychology, economics, and the law-present the results of controlled experiments with more than 600 mock juries involving the responses of more than 8,000 jury-eligible citizens. Although juries tended to agree in their moral judgments about the defendant's conduct, they rendered erratic and unpredictable dollar awards. The experiments also showed that instead of moderating juror verdicts, the process of jury deliberation produced a striking "severity shift" toward ever-higher awards. Jurors also tended to ignore instructions from the judges; were influenced by whatever amount the plaintiff happened to request; showed "hindsight bias," believing that what happened should have been foreseen; and penalized corporations that had based their decisions on careful cost-benefit analyses. While judges made many of the same errors, they performed better in some areas, suggesting that judges (or other specialists) may be better equipped than juries to decide punitive damages. Using a wealth of new experimental data, and offering a host of provocative findings, this book documents a wide range of systematic biases in jury behavior. It will be indispensable for anyone interested not only in punitive damages, but also jury behavior, psychology, and how people think about punishment.

With the growing literature on the subject of punitive damages, the consensus is that it seems worthwhile and even necessary to discuss, thoroughly and on a comparative basis, the nature, role and suitability of such damages in tort law and private law in general. This book contains reports from selected jurisdictions that explicitly allow the award of punitive damages as well as from jurisdictions which purport (sometimes emphatically) to deny their existence (although a number covertly incorporate such damages into the framework of their tort systems). It benefits from an economic analysis of punitive damages, a report from a private international law perspective, one on their insurability and one on aggravated damages. The book’s comparative report and conclusion critically evaluates the material in the above reports and advances a thorough analysis of the nature of punitive damages, the cases for and against them, and their suitability in the field of tort law. Alternative remedies in private and criminal law are also considered. The publication will appeal to students, academics, practitioners, judges, policy makers and those in the insurance industry.

"In November 2010, the Ius Commune Research School devoted the Liability and Insurance workshop on its annual conference to the "Power of Punitive Damages" "--Back cover.

Here’s all the information you need to provide your clients with superior litigation support services. Get up to speed quickly, with the aid of top experts, on trial preparation and testimony presentation, deposition, direct examination, and cross-examination. Authoritative and highly practical, this is THE essential guide for any financial expert wanting to prosper in this lucrative new area, the lawyers who hire them, and litigants who benefit from their efforts. "This work of amazing breadth and depth covers the central issues that arise in financial expert testimony. It is an essential reference for counsel and practitioners in the field."—Joseph A. Grundfest, The William A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Stanford Law School; former commissioner, United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tort Law: A Modern Perspective is an advanced yet accessible introduction to tort law for lawyers, law students, and others. Reflecting the way tort law is taught today, it explains the cases and legal doctrines commonly found in casebooks using modern ideas about public policy, economics, and philosophy. With an emphasis on policy rationales, Tort Law encourages readers to think critically about the justifications for legal doctrines. Although the topic of torts is specific, the conceptual approach should pay dividends to those who are interested broadly in regulatory policy and the role of law. Incorporating three decades of advancements in tort scholarship, Tort Law is the textbook for modern torts classrooms.

Rev. ed. of : Handbook on the law of remedies. 1973.

Through a collaboration among twenty legal scholars from North America, Europe and Asia, this book presents an international consensus on the use of patent remedies for complex products such as smartphones, computer networks, and the Internet of Things. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.