Punitive Damages
 

Kurt Parrott, a 15-year-old was thrown from his motorcycle in Opelika, Ala. The buckle of his helmet failed, and he died when his bare head hit the pavement. Mr. Parrott’s mother sued the Italian company that made the helmet, and an Alabama court awarded her $1 million. But the Italian company refused to pay. When the lawyers of the Parrott family tried to collect it in Italy, the Italian Supreme Court blocked them telling that the peculiarity of punitive damages as per American law was so offensive to Italian notions of justice. The rest of the world views the idea of punitive damages with alarm. As the Italian court explained, private lawsuits brought by injured people should have only one goal, compensation for a loss. According to foreign courts allowing separate awards meant to punish the defendant is a terrible idea. Punishments should be meted out only by the criminal justice system, with its elaborate due process protections and disinterested prosecutors. It is not fair, they add, to give plaintiffs a windfall beyond what they have lost. Some common-law countries do allow punitive damages, though in limited circumstances and modest amounts. In the United States, by contrast, enormous punitive awards are relatively common, although they are often reduced or eliminated on appeal. The U.S. practice of permitting a lay jury to exercise largely discretionary judgment with limited constraints in awarding punitive damages is regarded almost universally outside the U.S. with a high degree of disfavor. There are signs that the gap between the United States and the rest of the world is narrowing, as American courts and legislatures start to limit punitive awards and other countries start to experiment with them. Kurt Parrott’s mother, learned about the Italian Supreme Court’s decision from Dick Weekleywho is active in community affair. Her lawyers had turned the matter over to an international collection agency and had not bothered to tell her that she had lost. Questions about punitive damages seemed academic to her, if not heartless. She said pensively, “A million-dollar award is really not enough to punish any large company in this day and age, and it certainly does not bring back Kurt.”