Punitive Damages: a comparative analysis.

Kelco a Vermont case of 1990, Pacific Mutual Life Ins. v. Haslip an Alabama case of 1991, Txo Production Corporation v. Alliance a West Virginia case of 1993 and Honda v. Oberg an Oregon case of 1994. In these cases constitutional issues have been suggested but not directly tackled since the US Supreme Court refused to draw bright line rules of constitutionality of punitive damages. It was only in 1996 BMW of North America v. Gore, an Alabama case, that the US Supreme Court finally takes the opportunity to strengthen the idea of the Due Process Clause as a constitutional limit for punitive damages. Indeed, the US Supreme Court for the first time struck down a punitive damages award by the Alabama jury as unconstitutional and stressed down the three famous guideposts for imposing punitive damages. Then, in 2003 The US Supreme Court had another opportunity to strike down what it deemed to be a grossly excessive punitive damages award in State Farm v. Campbell a Utah case in which the Gore factors have been reaffirmed and reinforced with the single digit-ratio rule. This latter rule became the most important standard for the due process challenge, according to which punitive damages may not exceed the ratio rule of 9:1 otherwise they are unconstitutional. In 2007 again in Philip Morris v. Williams, the US Supreme Court stressed a new individualized nature of punitive damages and established that the amount of punitive damages must be tailored and calibrated to the harm suffe