Litigation

Further Commentary on Unocal Punitive Damages Decision

By Bruce Nye

Yesterday CalBizLit posted on Holdgrafer v. Unocal, wherein the Court of Appeal for the second district applied State Farm v. Campbell in reversing a punitive damages award.  The trial court had allowed evidence of other bad acts, which the Court of Appeal ruled were too dissimilar.

The appellate firm of Horvitz & Levy represented Unocal in the case, and is certainly entitled to plaudits.  Last night, in that firm's punitive damages blog California Punitive Damages - An Exemplary Blog,  Horwitz's Jeremy Rosen quibbled with my characterization of the San Luis Obispo County judge as "conservative" for reducing the jury's punitive verdict from $10,000,000.76 (a cute nod to Unocal's former name, Union 76) to $5,000,000. 

I guess I'm jaded by practicing in California's big cities, where we've seen a $50 million punitive damage award against UPS, a $28 billion punitive award against  Phillip Morris and a $50 million punitive award against DaimlerChrysler.  Pretty sad when a $5 million punitive judgment becomes, if not conservative, at least ho hum.

Full post as published by CalBizLit on March 06, 2008 (boomark / email).