Opinion ID: 783516
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disparity Between Harm and Punitive Damages Award

Text: 46 To assess the appropriateness of the ratio of the punitive damages award to the harm, the proper inquiry is whether there is a reasonable relationship between the punitive damages award and the harm likely to result from the defendant's conduct as well as the harm that actually has occurred. Gore, 517 U.S. at 581, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (quotation marks and emphasis omitted). This consideration requires courts to ensure that the measure of punishment is both reasonable and proportionate to the amount of harm to the plaintiff and to the general damages recovered. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 1513, 1524, 155 L.Ed.2d 585 (2003). Our reasonableness determination does not entail a simple mathematical formula, as there may be cases where a particularly egregious act has resulted in only a small amount of economic damages. Gore, 517 U.S. at 582, 116 S.Ct. 1589; see Lee, 101 F.3d at 810-11 (refusing to rely on a mathematical multiplier to assess the reasonableness of the award where the compensatory award was nominal). 47 Consideration of the disparity between the punitive damages award and the harm provides minimal assistance in the instant case. For example, if we assume that Rebecca DiSorbo remits to yield a $250,000 compensatory damages award for the excessive force claim, the ratio between compensatory and punitive damages would be 2.5-to-1, which would not appear to be an unreasonable ratio. If we look at the abuse of process claim, however, the jury awarded only nominal compensatory damages, yielding a staggering 650,000-to-1 ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages. We therefore conclude that the use of a multiplier to assess punitive damages is not the best tool here. Lee, 101 F.3d at 811. 48