Law Commons^™

The Road From Nowhere? Punitive Damage Ratios After Bmw V. Gore And State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. V. Campbell, Andrew C. W. Lund

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article offers a brief introduction to BMW and its immediate aftermath. After the decision was handed down in 1996, scholars found that punitive damage award ratios were still arbitrary. In Part III, one hypothesis given to explain this result--that not enough time had elapsed since BMW to allow lower courts to come to grips with its lessons--is examined and dismissed after observing how post-BMW courts continued to give shape to the guideposts well beyond 1996. Part IV offers a different hypothesis, which better explains why punitive damage awards behaved arbitrarily. The cause of ratios' weakness lay in the BMW …