"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.

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.

Jules Coleman discusses the conflict between the goals of justice and economic efficiency in the allocation of risk, especially risk pertaining to safety.

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.

The 16th edition of McGregor on Damages maintains the standards of its forebears and provides an authoritative text on common law damages. Det ailed consideration is given to all relevant points of law and practice relating to the manifold aspects of the subject. The second supplement includes the many changes in this area of law since publication of the previous edition in 1988 such as: the decisions of the Court of Appeal and House of Lords in the recent BBL litigation, developments in exemplary damages, and the appropriate discount rate for multipliers in personal injury cases.

Punitive damages are private law's most controversial remedy. This book traces the development of the jurisdiction from the foundational decisions of Huckle v Money and Wilkes v Wood in England, to leading modern cases such as Harris v Digital Pulse Pty Ltd in Australia, Whiten v Pilot Insurance Co in Canada, Couch v AG (No 2) in New Zealand, PH Hydraulics and Engineering Pte Ltd v Airtrust (Hong Kong) Ltd in Singapore and Mathias v Accor Economy Lodging, Inc and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co v Campbell in the United States. Many of the decisions addressed are not only landmarks regarding punitive damages but are among the most important judgments delivered in private law more generally. The essays, which are written by leading scholars from a wide range of jurisdictions, cast new light on the cases covered. They do so by examining their historical antecedents and the impact that they have had on the development of the law. The full spectrum of issues regarding punitive damages is addressed including the insurability of punishment, constitutional constraints on the remedy's availability and whether the award should be confined to particular causes of action. The collection will be of interest to all scholars and students of private law. It concentrates on common law cases although civilian perspectives, drawn from France and Germany, are also offered.