Opinion ID: 1253404
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Campbell Allows Punitive Damages to be Related to the Degree of Reprehensibility of the Defendant's Conduct

Text: As the majority opinion notes, the Campbell Court reiterated: The most important indicium of reasonableness of a punitive damages award is the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct. 538 U.S. at 418, 123 S.Ct. 1513 ( quoting BMW, 517 U.S. at 575, 116 S.Ct. 1589). The Campbell Court  relying upon its prior opinion in BMW  laid out five sub-factors for determining the degree of a defendant's reprehensibility: (1) whether the harm caused was physical as opposed to economic; (2) whether the tortious conduct evinced an indifference to or a reckless disregard of the health or safety of others; (3) whether the target of the conduct had financial vulnerability; (4) whether the conduct involved repeated actions or was an isolated incident; and (5) whether the harm was the result of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit, or mere accident. Id. There is absolutely nothing in Campbell to suggest that all or most of these sub-factors must be present to support a punitive damage award. Instead, the threshold for supporting a punitive damage verdict seems to hover at, or just above, the presence of just one of the reprehensibility sub-factors. As the Court suggested, the existence of any one of these [reprehensibility] factors ... may not be sufficient to sustain a punitive damages award; and the absence of all of them renders any award suspect. Id. Furthermore, the Court has repeatedly recognized that when the defendant is a repeat offender, strong medicine is needed to get the defendant's attention regardless of the existence of any other factor delineated by the Court. Certainly, evidence that a defendant has repeatedly engaged in prohibited conduct while knowing or suspecting that it was unlawful would provide relevant support for an argument that strong medicine is required to cure the defendant's disrespect for the law. Our holdings that a recidivist may be punished more severely that a first offender recognize that repeated misconduct is more reprehensible than an individual instance of malfeasance. BMW, 517 U.S. at 576-77, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (citations omitted, emphasis added). See also TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 462 n. 28, 113 S.Ct. 2711, 125 L.Ed.2d 366 (1993). In this case, the jury properly assessed the defendants' conduct, and their punitive damage verdict encompassed the reprehensibility of that conduct.