Health care litigation: achieving fairness and reasonableness in punitive damages awards.

Abstract

This article, the eighth in a series on health care litigation, discusses whether due process considerations require that the common-law procedures for awarding punitive damages be modified and whether juries have undue discretion in awarding punitive damages. The authors analyze an important recent United States Supreme Court punitive damages case and examine the changes states may need to make in their punitive damages assessment procedures to conform with the Supreme Court's holding.