Punitive Damage Decision Making: The Decisions of Citizens and Trial Court Judges

• NCJ Number: 195476
• Journal: Law and Human Behavior Volume: 26 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 315-341
• Author(s): Jennifer K. Robbennolt
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 27 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands

Annotation

This study explored how damage awards, both punitive and compensatory, are made by judges and jury-eligible citizens.

Abstract

This study explored how both punitive and compensatory damage awards were made by 87 Federal and State trial court judges and 140 jury-eligible citizens, comparing those findings to the expectations of the legal system. The study addressed the issue of whether or not legislative reform was needed to change how these damages were applied, even though empirical evidence shows that punitive damages are not in fact excessive. Participants read a written vignette describing an incident that resulted in a lawsuit and rated the seriousness of the potential harm, the seriousness of the actual harm caused, and the degree to which the defendant was wealthy. Factor analysis was conducted on 10 evidence interpretation items. Also, attitudes toward civil litigation were examined, with jurors awards directly related to their perception of whether or not there was a litigation crisis in damage awards. Outcome severity manipulations were performed and were shown to significantly affect juror decisions. Of the two major factors examined, seriousness of the injury, actual and potential, to the plaintiff and the wealth of the defendant, it was found that the actual and potential severity of the harm done to the plaintiff was used similarly by both groups in determining punitive damages, and only the actual severity of the injury was used in determining compensatory damages. The wealth of the defendant was found to influence the amount of punitive damages awarded, with the judges' decisions being slightly more influenced by defendant wealth than those of the citizen jurors. However, the wealth of the defendant did not figure prominently in the amount of award for compensatory damages for either jurors or judges. Judges were found, generally, to make more consistent awards than jurors. It was concluded that legislative reform substituting judges for jurors in determining punitive damages is without empirical support. Tables, references