Faculty Scholarship Repository
A Service of the Ross-Blakley Law Library
| Book Chapter |
| Mathias v Accor Economy Lodging, Inc (2003): Judge Richard A Posner's Message and Method on Punitive Damages |
| Ellen Bublick |
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Landmark Cases in the Law of Punitive Damages James Goudkamp & Eleni Katsampouka eds., Bloomsbury 2023 |
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Abstract: Judge Richard Posner’s famous opinion in Mathias v. Accor tells a powerful story. In a case involving the tiny harms inflicted by bed bugs, Mathias argues that courts’ proportionality analysis should measure punitive damages awards against the wrongfulness of defendant’s conduct and need for deterrence, not against the amount of compensatory damages awarded in the case. Judge Posner raised his powerful critique of the punitive damages standard, in poetic fashion, shortly after the United States Supreme Court had decided State Farm v. Campbell—a key moment in the punitive damages discourse. In this book chapter, Professor Bublick reveals another, more important, lesson of the Mathias opinion that has been obscured from view. Once readers understand a fact that was (deliberately?) misstated, the Mathias opinion becomes more deeply telling and instructive about Judge Posner’s pragmatic method of review and his commitment to commercial fair dealing as the site at which economic and moral perspectives merge. |
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