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Presentation
Punitive Damages - Something for Everyone?
Keynote Speaker, University of St. Thomas Law Journal Fall 2009 Symposium, Exxon Valdez Revisted: Rights and Remedies (2009)
  • Doug Rendleman, Washington and Lee University School of Law
Abstract

Common-law punitive damages have some feature that will upset everyone: A civil court meting out punishment. A sanction imposed after mere civil procedure. A private plaintiff receiving a “windfall” that exceeds any reasonable estimate of loss. And the Supreme Court wielding the discredited doctrine of substantive Due Process.

After the Exxon-Valdez’s massive oil spill washed on the shoals of maritime common-law punitive damages, a two-decade pavane featured an angry Alaska jury, a sympathetic trial judge, and a Court of Appeals trying to interpret and apply several muddled Supreme Court punitive-damages decisions. In the denouement, Exxon Shipping v. Baker, the Supreme Court imposed a reduction of the punitive damages that ended the protracted litigation without satisfying anyone.

Keywords
  • Punitive Damages,
  • Remedies
Disciplines
Publication Date
October 1, 2009
Citation Information
Doug Rendleman, Keynote Speaker at University of St. Thomas Law Journal Fall 2009 Symposium, Exxon Valdez Revisted: Rights and Remedies, Punitive Damages - Something for Everyone? (Oct. 1, 2009).