Punitive damages revisited

The US Supreme Court is to revisit issues of the size of punitive damages awards in relation to compensatory award in hearing an appeal by State Farm Mutual Insurance against the Utah Supreme Court’s reinstatement of punitive damages of US$145mn (on US$1mn compensation). State Farm argues that the punitive damages are excessive, referring to the 1996 landmark decision in Gore v BMW (that punitive awards could be so disproportionate to the compensatory award as to be unconstitutional) and that the Utah court violated due process rights in considering a number of dissimilar out-of-state decisions.