After reflection

So I noted that today that the Supreme Court refused to uphold the the punitive damages awarded against Altria f/k/a Phillip Morris (who makes, markets, and sells cigarettes). In light of the State Farm verdict a few years ago, as well as the subsequent refinements which have been made to the holding in that case, this should have come as nothing as a suprise.

Which to my mind seems to show that the Supreme Court, as composed in this court and in the Rehnquist one which preceded it, seems to want to gut punitive damages. There are those on both sides of the litigation debate who will tell you that punitives are too high and onerous or too low and easy for the wrongdoers, but it seems that right now the jurisprudence is taking the side of businesses who seek to escape from punitives.

Punitives are there to ensure that a person, or corporation, which does a bad act that rises to a certain level should be punished for that act. By limiting the amount, the court is seeming to encourage the kind of risk calculation which gave us the Ford Pinto. It seems to me what the court should have done was up the standard by which defendant is judged when it comes to determining whether punitives are available. That way the true malfeasors are still held accountable in a way that does hurt them and avoids assigning punitive damages to simple negligence situtations.

Those are my half-formed thoughts on the subject.

Supreme Court Doesn't Overturn the Ninth

For those who are lawyers, this is a man bites dog category.

Today, the Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit's decision in a case involving W.R. Grace & Co. The matter in question has to do with W.R. Grace's operations in Libby, Montana. Essentially, W.R. Grace mined asbestos there.

Since the 1930s, the asbestos industry knew that asbestos could kill the people who mined it, refined, worked with, or was exposed to it. And like responsible corporate citizens, they suppressed the information. Finally, the EPA and the government got around to prosecuting W.R. Grace for the pollution that they had caused to the town of Libby. They were found guilty.

On appeal, W.R. Grace complains that they should not be forced to pay for the clean up. Let's see, you've been convicted, the industry has lost literally thousands of cases for the harm caused by your product, and now they claim that they should not have to bear the burden of cleaning up the costs. Chuzpah?

Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court's ruling, which the Supreme Court has seen fit to not overturn. So in essence this was a two for one.