IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urnsici0932-4569(201003)1661_5vipdea_2.0.tx_2-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Variability in Punitive Damages: Empirically Assessing Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker

Author

Listed:
  • Theodore Eisenberg
  • Michael Heise
  • Martin T. Wells

Abstract

Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker acknowledged that empirical studies undercut criticism of punitive damages. Paradoxically, the Court simultaneously expressed concern about jury predictability based on a high and variable punitive-compensatory ratio published in an article by the present authors. The Court reduced the $2.5 billion Exxon Valdez punitive award to $500 million and stated: ithe constitutional outer limit may well be 1:1. Our empirical findings do not support the unpredictability concern or widely applying the limiting ratio. The high and variable ratio is an artifact of not accounting for the key variable that explains punitive awards - the compensatory award.

Suggested Citation

  • Theodore Eisenberg & Michael Heise & Martin T. Wells, 2010. "Variability in Punitive Damages: Empirically Assessing Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 166(1), pages 5-26, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201003)166:1_5:vipdea_2.0.tx_2-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/variability-in-punitive-damages-empirically-assessing-exxon-shipping-co-v-baker-101628093245610790711555
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christoph Engel & Urs Schweizer, 2010. "Jurimetrics 27th International Seminar on the New Institutional Economics June 11-13, 2009, Kloster Eberbach, Germany," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 166(1), pages 1-4, March.
    2. Kenworthey Bilz, 2010. "Defending the (Mis)use of Statistics in Law," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 166(1), pages 194-198, March.
    3. Stephen J. Choi & Theodore Eisenberg, 2010. "Punitive Damages in Securities Arbitration: An Empirical Study," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 497-546.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201003)166:1_5:vipdea_2.0.tx_2-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.