TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rossi,Alison F. Del
AU  - Viscusi,W. Kip
TI  - The Changing Landscape of Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15571
PY  - 2009
Y2  - December 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15571
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15571.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alison F. Del Rossi
Department of Economics
St. Lawrence University
Canton, New York 13617
E-Mail: adelrossi@stlawu.edu

W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School
131 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203-1181
Tel: 615/343-7715
E-Mail: kip.viscusi@vanderbilt.edu
AB  - This article investigates the determinants of the blockbuster punitive damages awards of at least $100 million.  As of the end of 2008, there had been 100 such awards with an average value of $3.0 billion.  The U.S. Supreme Court decision in State Farm v. Campbell suggested a single digit upper bound on the punitive damages/compensatory damages ratio, which reduced the annual number of blockbuster awards, the total annual value of blockbuster awards, and the punitive damages/compensatory damages ratio.  Applying the 1:1 ratio from Exxon Shipping Co. et al. v. Baker et al. broadly would eliminate most of the blockbuster awards.
ER  -