Might the Philip Morris v. Williams Decision Cut Both Ways?
Reaction to last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Philip Morris USA v. Williams (referenced here) has been interesting, to say the least. Early on, the feedback seemed universally negative. For an example, check out this editorial from The New York Times.
More recently, at least two commentators have managed to find a silver lining in the Court's ruling. Over at Blawgletter, Barry Barnett observed that the decision, by turning on jury instructions rather than imposing a bright line rule on the ratio between actual and punitive damages, effectively "affirmed the jury's primacy in determining appropriate punishment," potentially signaling a "healthy reluctance on the Court to undo the work of juries."
Taking a different slant, Law.com's Howard Bashman went so far as to proclaim the ruling "good news for plaintiffs who don't win the race to be first to obtain punitive damages against a defendant whose conduct has harmed many" because "the defendant will no longer be able to persuasively argue that earlier punitive damages awards aimed at punishing the same conduct at issue in the current plaintiff's lawsuit extracted a punishment sufficient to mandate the dismissal of that particular plaintiff's punitive damages claim."
These days, the silver lining is getting harder and harder to find. I am grateful that someone is still looking.
See the New York Personal Injury Law Blog for yet another take on this topic.