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Punitive Damages In Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study, Stephen Choi, Theodore Eisenberg
Punitive Damages In Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study, Stephen Choi, Theodore Eisenberg
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This article provides the first empirical analysis of punitive damages in securities arbitrations. Using a data set of over 6,800 securities arbitration awards, we find that claimants prevailed in 48.9 percent of arbitrations and that 9.1 percent of those claimant victories included a punitive damages award. The existence of a punitive damages award was associated with claims that suggested egregious misbehavior and with claims that provided higher compensatory awards. The pattern of punitive awards is more consistent with a traditional view of punitive damages that incorporates a retributive component than with a law and economics emphasis on efficient deterrence. We …
Significant Association Between Punitive And Compensatory Damages In Blockbuster Cases: A Methodological Primer, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells
Significant Association Between Punitive And Compensatory Damages In Blockbuster Cases: A Methodological Primer, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This article assesses the relation between punitive and compensatory damages in a data set, gathered by Hersch and Viscusi (H-V), consisting of all known punitive damages awards in excess of $100 million from 1985 through 2003. It shows that a strong, statistically significant relation exists between punitive and compensatory awards, a relation that replicates similar findings in nearly all other analyses of punitive and compensatory damages. H-V's claim that no significant relation exists between punitive and compensatory awards in these data appears to be an artifact of questionable regression methodology.
Juries, Judges, And Punitive Damages: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Neil Lafountain, Brian Ostrom, David Rottman, Martin T. Wells
Juries, Judges, And Punitive Damages: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Neil Lafountain, Brian Ostrom, David Rottman, Martin T. Wells
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This Article, the first broad-based analysis of punitive damages in judge-tried cases, compares judge and jury performance in awarding punitive damages and in setting their levels. Data covering one year of judge and jury trial outcomes from forty-five of the nation's largest counties yield no substantial evidence that judges and juries differ in the rate at which they award punitive damages or in the central relation between the size of punitive awards and compensatory awards. The relation between punitive and compensatory awards in jury trials is strikingly similar to the relation in judge trials. For a given level of compensatory …
Measuring The Deterrent Effect Of Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg
Measuring The Deterrent Effect Of Punitive Damages, Theodore Eisenberg
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Professor Viscusi's article differs from the dominant mode of law and economics scholarship on punitive damages. The usual punitive damages article contains purely theoretical considerations about when punitive damages are appropriate and about their optimal level; no effort is made to ascertain whether the existing pattern of punitive awards corresponds with the theory. This is part of a larger problem: the dearth of empirical evidence in law and economics scholarship. Viscusi, on the other hand, provides empirical tests of whether punitive damages accomplish their goals, and he makes creative use of publicly available data sources. For the goal of his …