Avenging Legal Angels of Death, Punitive Damages, and the Jerky Boys.

It only seems fair that if someone injures us, and causes us to suffer a loss, that we want things to be made right. To avoid people beating each others’ brains out in the streets to settle their disputes, we use the court system to settle such things. The basic idea of a personal injury civil lawsuit, whether it be for a car accident, a slip and fall, or an injury suffered because of a problem with a product, is to put the injured party (the plaintiff) back to where they would have been had the injury never been caused by the person or party who caused it (the defendant). We call this type of award “compensatory damages”. (You know, as in “to compensate”.) Compensatory damages include things like lost wages, property damage, and medical care. They can also include damages for any pain and suffering the plaintiff endured as a result of the actions of the defendant.

But it’s human nature to want to take a chunk out of the butt of the person or party who harmed us. To punish them above and beyond simply being compensated for what happened to us. Many people view their attorney as a sort of Avenging Legal Angel of Death who will not only right the wrong they suffered but swing a giant Sword of Vengeance and cause the defendant to suffer, legally anyway, in some way too. The name for what they’re looking for is “punitive damages”. (You know, as in “to punish”).

Contrary to what the average politician and the media may have you believe, punitive damage awards are extremely rare. In fact, they’re reserved for situations where the defendant’s conduct was either intentional (i.e., not just an accident), outrageously or horribly indifferent to human life, or grossly negligent. Punitive damages, while designed to punish this kind of behavior, are also intended to act as a deterrent to others to not act in the same way. People tend to only hear about the extremely rare cases where a plaintiff is awarded millions of dollars in punitive damages. For most, the “McDonald’s Coffee” case comes to mind, the truth of which is well-described here. The reality is that punitive damages are awarded in only about 2% of cases, and even then the typical award is less than $50,000.

if you’ve been injured, your attorney will work with you to assess the value of your case, and to determine what type of damages may be available. We’ll leave you with the classic take on punitive damages, brought to you by those great legal scholars, the Jerky Boys.