THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 17, 1995 TAG: 9507170048
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
As Congress heads toward limiting the punitive damages juries can award, a Justice Department study showed Sunday that punitive awards occur in only a tiny fraction of civil cases and half of them are for less than $50,000.
In a study of state civil suits in the nation's 75 largest counties, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in 1992 there were 762,000 civil suits involving torts, contracts and real property rights. Punitive damages were awarded in only 364 cases, the study found.
The overwhelming majority of cases, 750,000, never reached a jury. Jurors ruled on only 12,000 cases. In those, the plaintiffs won 6,200 and lost 5,800 times.
Punitive damages are awarded when a defendant is found grossly negligent. Compensatory damages reimburse plaintiffs for their actual losses. Only 10 percent of the money awarded to plaintiffs was for punitive damages.
In the 364 cases in which plaintiffs were awarded punitive damages, half the awards were below $50,000. The average of all awards was $735,000, brought up from the median figure of $50,000 by a few large awards. More than $1 million in punitive damages was awarded in 11.6 percent of the 364 cases.
The total in punitive damages for the 364 cases was $267.8 million.
Republicans in Congress are writing legislation to limit punitive damages in civil lawsuits. The version passed by the Senate deals only with product liability cases, but the House approved a broader bill encompassing all civil suits, including medical malpractice.
President Clinton has said he would veto the broader version and believes the Senate bill also is flawed. House and Senate negotiators are trying to reconcile the differences between the two bills.
The study found that juries ruled in 360 product liability cases during the year. Plaintiffs won 142 of them but were awarded punitive damages in only three, with none of the punitive awards above $250,000.
In the 403 medical malpractice cases that plaintiffs won, punitive damages were awarded in only 13 cases. In four of these cases, the punitive damages were more than $250,000, but none was for more than $1 million.
In the 13 toxic substance cases with punitive damages awards, slightly more than half of the awards were more than $1 million.
KEYWORDS: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT STUDY LAWSUIT PUNITIVE DAMAGE by CNB