Court Opinion

ID: 9651719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:32:33.652821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:37.970454
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. This Court has always held that punitive damages must bear some reasonable relationship to compensatory damages, and I perceive no reason to depart from that requirement. See Martin v. Johns-Manville Corp., 508 Pa. 154, 494 A.2d 1088 (1985) (Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court); Hughes v. Babcock, 349 Pa. 475, 37 A.2d 551 (1944); Givens v. W.J. Gilmore Drug Co., 337 Pa. 278, 10 A.2d 12 (1940); Thompson v. Swank, 317 Pa. 158, 176 A. 211 (1934); Mitchell v. Randal, 288 Pa. 518, 137 A. 171 (1927). By requiring a reasonable relationship between punitive and compensatory damage awards, appellate courts are afforded a standard by which to review awards of punitive damages. Absent that standard, appellate review will be cast adrift, and jurors will be free to award punitive damages effectively unchecked by the appellate process.
*105The primary purpose of civil damage awards is to compensate for injuries sustained, rather than to impose punishment, for the latter is generally reserved for criminal law. To the extent that punitive damages are available in civil cases, they should not be permitted to serve as a vehicle for jurors to engage in an unrestrained venting of their punitive impulses. If, in any given case, a punitive damage award bears no reasonable relation to the harm suffered by the plaintiff, the award is per se shocking to the traditionally felt sense of justice and should not be sustained. (“To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.” Epictetus, Discourses (2nd cent.)). The decision of the court below, requiring that punitive damage awards be reasonable in amount, should be sustained.