Juries punish defendants with punitive damages calibrated to corporate revenue

Evidence

The trial went badly for McDonald’s. There was uncontradicted testimony that McDonald’s served its coffee at an unusually high temperature and that it had refused to warn the public or lower the coffee’s temperature, despite more than 700 previous complaints of scalding. The jury found for Liebeck, awarding her 160,000 in compensatory damages (200,000 minus 40,000 for her 20 percent responsibility for her injuries). To punish McDonald's, the jury also awarded her 2.7 million in punitive damages, the equivalent of 2 days’ worth of coffee sales by the corporation. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3522

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the McDonald’s coffee case my law student colleagues cite constantly; also connects to ch64-65 on jury discretion and verdicts.
• ADDENDUM: This unpacks the ‘runaway jury’ trope with concrete dollar mechanics useful for course discussion of jury discretion over damages and judicial standards for reducing awards.
• CANDY: The $2.7 million equaling 2 days of coffee sales is a great at-a-party aside about punitive damage logic.