Washington – Moving again to rein in large verdicts that punish companies, the Supreme Court on Monday set aside a San Diego jury’s award of $55 million to penalize Ford Motor Co. for a rollover accident involving its popular Ford Explorer.
In a one-line order, the justices told a California appeals court to reconsider the punitive verdict.
The ruling does not affect the $28 million in compensatory damages awarded to the mother of two paralyzed after her Explorer rolled over in 2002.
Juries may award damages to compensate victims for wrongful injuries, and they also may award extra money to punish the wrong-doer. But during the 1990s, the Supreme Court concluded that unrestrained punitive verdicts might violate the Constitution; since then, the justices have been searching for a way to limit such damages.
In February, they overturned a $79 million punitive verdict for a deceased smoker from Oregon and ruled it was unconstitutional to calculate damages based on the harm suffered by other users of the same product.
In another case Monday, the court ruled in a 5-4 vote that a death-row inmate who told his attorney not to present evidence that could have spared his life does not deserve a new hearing now that he has changed his mind.
Jeffrey Timothy Landrigan has a particularly violent past, with a father who received the death penalty. Landrigan was in prison in Oklahoma for killing a man when he stabbed another inmate. He escaped from prison and killed Chester Dean Dyer in Arizona, a 1989 murder for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.
“The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Landrigan could not establish prejudice based on his counsel’s failure to present the evidence he now wishes to offer,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. “Landrigan’s mitigation evidence was weak.”
The court’s docket this term is heavy with death-penalty cases, and the decisions have shown a court starkly divided on the issue. Justice Anthony Kennedy has been the deciding vote in each case.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
