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Punitive Damages In Ancient Roman And Contemporary American Tort Law, Esther Julia Sonntag

LLM Theses and Essays

Both ancient Roman and contemporary American tort law recognize a type of damages that, instead of compensating the plaintiff for harm suffered, punishes the wrongdoer. In American law, courts can award two distinct amounts of money: compensatory damages for the plaintiff’s loss, and punitive damages as punishment and deterrence. Ancient Roman law had more extreme forms of remedies. In both legal systems there has been a trend to restrict punitive damages over time. The United States made efforts in the 1980s to place caps on punitive damages, which were referred to as “relics of the past,” and enhance requirements for …