A blawg dealing with punitive damages - whose posts seem to be dedicated to the establishing that punitive damages are virtually never recoverable - offers this:
SEIU v. Colcord—Punitive Damages Must Be Reconsidered After Compensatory Damages Are Reduced
In this published opinion, the California Court of Appeal (First Appellate District, Division One) reduced the amount of compensatory damages by $300,000 and then remanded the case for reconsideration of the punitive damages award in light of the reduced amount. That seems like a straightforward proposition. Juries are instructed that punitive damages must bear a reasonable relationship to the plaintiff's actual harm, so if a jury or trial court awards punitive damages based on an a false understanding of the plaintiff's actual harm, they should reconsider their award in light of the correct amount of compensatory damages. At the least, the punitive damages award should be reduced to preserve the original ratio of punitive to compensatory damages (assuming that ratio was not excessive). (See Las Palmas Associatesv. Las Palmas Center Associates (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 1220, 1254 [reducing compensatory damages and reducing punitive damages to preserve the ratio awarded by the jury]; but see Stevens v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 1645, fn. 11 [dicta stating "there is no rule requiring preservation of the original ratio between punitive damages and compensatory damages"].)
But compare this decision to the Fifth Appellate District's opinion in McGee v. Tucoemas, in which the court refused to order a reconsideration (or reduction) of the punitive damages award after a reduction of the compensatory damages award.
Also the award was approximately $2 million compensatory and $1.2 million punitives, well within the range of "reasonableness" for due process purposes.
Full disclosure: our firm (Horvitz & Levy) represents the defendant in McGee, in which a cert. petition is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court (on a different issue).
Interesting, but the post omits the fact that, with respect to the McGee case, the California Supreme Court refused to grant review and the writ of cert has not been granted by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Also, in the SEIU decision, the Appellate Court remanded the the case to give the trial court the "opportunity" to reconsider the punitive damage award if it chose to do so. In the McGee case, the trial expressly ruled that the its reduction of the compensatory damage award - from $2.5 million to $1.8 million - didn't warrant a reduction of the punitive damage award.
Hence, (a) there is no automatic rule that requires a corresponding reduction in punitive damages when the compensatory damages are reduced and (b) the court properly exercised its discretion in the McGee case.
Full disclosure: the Penner & Bradley megafirm (along with Norm Pine and Andy Jones) represents the plaintiff in McGee.
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