By the end of their FFA studies, students, one way or another, are familiar with the concept of punitive damages, which is defined by law.com as:damages awarded in a lawsuit as a punishment and example to others for malicious, evil or particularly fraudulent acts.And even before starting the FFA, many students have read about the huge damage awards given out by American juries to people who smoked all their lives, for example, and are now suing because smoking adversely impacted their health. Many students find these awards to be excessive, especially when they are given in cases involving people who have engaged in activity, smoking for example, that everyone knows is dangerous.
Well, many American also feel these awards have become excessive and just yesterday the United States Supreme Court took up the question concerning what kind of limits can be placed on juries who hand out these awards. The case in question comes from Oregon and involves a person who smoked for 47 years and eventually died of lung cancer in 1997. A jury awarded the smoker's family $800,000 to compensate for their loss, and then slapped a $79.5 million punitive damage award on the cigarette company Philip Morris.
This case is instructive on a variety levels for FFA students. First, it shows that the courts can place limits on juries. Second, it discusses how punitive damages are used and possibly misused in the civil law system. Finally, it hints at something of which many students might not be aware. Higher courts often send an appeal back to the lower court for further review. Generally, either the appeals court doesn't understand the lower court ruling and wants further classification (see Justice Souter's comments in the article to which I have linked above), or the appeals court wants to give the lower court a "second chance" to apply the law properly.
Many Court observers said this particular case would be one of the most important upon which the Court would rule this year. Now it looks like the Court will simply send this matter back to the Oregon Supreme Court for further clarification.
