Thursday, June 26th, 2008...10:06 am
Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker
I happened to see a certain late-night comedy show last night that mentioned the SCOTUS decision in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker (07-219). (I don’t habitually read SCOTUSBlog or otherwise follow the court closely for the same reason I don’t visit record stores that often — it might be a little too fun.) This being late-night television comedy, the focus was not on the legal aspects of the decision. But when they mentioned a 1:1 ratio for setting punitive damages (against compensatory damages), my sleepy brain woke up a bit. “Punitive damages?” thought I. “This could be important to my clients!”
Well, sorta. As SCOTUS Blog, via Workplace Prof Blog, points out, this is narrowly focused on maritime law and doesn’t touch the Due Process Clause. I have been paid to write about Jones Act and DOHA stuff, but not very often. However, that post goes on to point out that the court seems to want consistency in punitive damages, and that it may use this decision as a guide in future punitives cases. And I don’t doubt that there will be more.
I won’t try to reproduce the man’s analysis, but it’s worth reading if punitives are important to you. I have no problem with setting guidelines aimed at consistency across jurisdictions, but I’d be disappointed if those guidelines effectively foreclose worthy cases.
4 Comments
June 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Punitive damages are unconstitutional if they’re more than a factor of ten above actual damages. Usually anything above a factor of, like, three or four is going to be problematic.
I know nothing about maritime law, but I did learn a little about riparian law… let’s have some legal disputes involving rivers, please.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Walter Dellinger, who argued the winning side of the case, contends that the decision applies outside of maritime law, but that the thing to keep in mind is that this decision refers only to punitive damages for economic classes:
http://www.slate.com/id/2193813/entry/2194309/
June 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Interesting. But of course, he makes it explicit that he has/had an agenda.
My concern is less for the actual precedent and more for the idea that this will be taken as a rough guide in unrelated future cases. (As Dellinger himself sorta says — he talks about SCOTUS leading state courts by example.) I just don’t want punitives defanged so much that it becomes economically worthwhile to knowingly sell, e.g., faulty brakes.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I don’t think we are at that point yet. Not only does the decision only apply to maritime law, but also only to reckless conduct that the actor does not profit from. It may not have a large impact on product liability, especially if the injured party can prove that a design or manufacturing decision resulted in profit for the liable party.
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