Punitive Damages

The administrative judge of Baltimore Circuit Court says the firm of attorney Peter G. Angelos sought his support for legislation that could affect punitive damages awarded in thousands of asbestos cases pending in the city court. FFTC Last week, Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan said that he once considered taking a position on the bill. After the initial contact, he asked an Angelos attorney to have other lawyers for asbestos victims send him letters about whether they had ever collected on a judgment for punitive damages on behalf of their clients.

Mike Psenicska says he's tried to be a good sport about his unwitting big-screen debut in the blockbuster Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He went to see the movie with his family. He has answered strangers' questions about his sudden celebrity, has smiled for pictures and, he says, even autographed one teenager's wrist. But the 64-year-old Perry Hall driving instructor says he didn't seek the attention, and he was hoping yesterday's snow would allow news of his lawsuit against the filmmakers to come out without too much notice.

WASHINGTON -- Workers who are victims of intentional sex and race bias on the job can collect extra, or "punitive," money damages without having to prove that the bias was "outrageous," the Supreme Court ruled yesterday by a 7-2 vote.It is enough, the court said, for the worker to show that the discrimination demonstrated a serious disregard of the worker's right to be treated equally.The ruling cleared up a conflict among lower courts on when punitive damages can be awarded. The justices overturned a federal appeals court decision that said such extra damages should be awarded only in "the worst cases," with clear proof of "outrageous" or "egregious" bias.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Los Angeles Times, which was published Wednesday.A CALIFORNIA jury recently handed down a $4.8-billion punitive damage award against General Motors in an auto accident in which passengers were horribly burned. Obviously, and understandably, the jury acted both out of sympathy with the victims and outrage against the auto maker. But it is virtually certain that any award of this size will be drastically reduced by either the trial judge or on appeal.

WASHINGTON -- After the Supreme Court threw up its hands in exasperation last week, Congress is preparing to begin debate Thursday on a new measure that would drastically overhaul the way the legal system resolves lawsuits brought by people harmed by asbestos.On the last day of its term, as it rejected a settlement of asbestos litigation approved by two lower courts, the court implored Congress to devise a legislative solution to "the elephantine mass of asbestos cases" that the justices said were clogging federal and state dockets, enriching lawyers in protracted court proceedings that ultimately leave many victims of asbestos poisoning with little or nothing.

Carroll school officials asked the county's legislative delegation yesterday for a measure requiring police to notify the superintendent when a student is charged with the sale, manufacture or distribution of drugs.Del. Joseph M. Getty of Manchester introduced such a bill last year after two teen-agers charged in the drug death of a 15-year-old Westminster High School student returned to school two days later.School officials were unaware the two had been charged.One reason Getty's statewide bill was shelved last year was that an estimated 50 percent of the juvenile drug offenders live in Baltimore, and it was believed the bill would create too much paperwork there, he said.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said yesterday that it will determine when employers will have to pay extra -- punitive -- damages when sex, race and other discrimination occurs in the workplace.Seven years after Congress first permitted the award of damages in Title VII job bias cases, lower courts are deeply divided over legal standards to guide juries when they find discrimination.Under the 1991 civil rights law, workers who prove that they are victims of intentional workplace discrimination may seek damages to compensate for their actual losses in pay and benefits, and may also ask for punitive damages.

Budget director Steven D. Powell urged the County Commissioners yesterday to enact legislation that would protect the county from having to pay punitive damages if Carroll is unable to fix its year 2000 computer problems by the Dec. 31, 1999, deadline.Although he expects county computers to be fully compliant by spring, "there are potentially a lot of little glitches that could take place" when altering hundreds of thousands of lines of code, Powell said. The alterations are necessary so that county programs run by computer can recognize dates in the 21st century, Powell said.

The head of the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs says the agency will take additional action against an East Columbia travel firm for failing to make refunds to disgruntled customers.Stephen D. Hannan, administrator of the county office, said Interlink Travel Network Inc. is not giving refunds to customers, as the firm recently agreed to do."There are no second chances. The agreement was a second chance," Hannan said yesterday.Hannan said he might request an injunction to force the company to pay the refunds.

Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine and its Applied Physics Laboratory will participate in a five-year NASA project to study the medical needs of people on long-term space missions.The two institutions are part of a consortium based at Baylor School of Medicine in Houston. The consortium's contract could be extended to as long as 20 years, with a total value of $145 million.U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, said the participation of Hopkins' scientists in the study "means new jobs, new opportunities and new knowledge for Maryland's biomedical research industry."

U.S. seeks class action vs. Wal-Mart SAN FRANCISCO: The Obama administration sided with women suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for discrimination yesterday, urging a federal appeals court to let current and former workers sue as a group and proceed with the biggest sex-bias case in U.S. history. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rejected Wal-Mart's argument that as many as 2 million workers shouldn't be allowed to seek back pay and punitive damages as a group because that would violate the company's right to defend itself against each worker's claims before a jury.

A jury awarded more than $150 million yesterday to the neighbors of a northern Baltimore County service station, finding Exxon Mobil Corp. liable for the damage caused when thousands of gallons of gasoline seeped into the groundwater from a leaking pipe. The Baltimore County jury's verdict - delivered after five months of testimony and nearly two weeks of deliberations - directs the oil giant to compensate about 90 Jacksonville families for the lost value of their homes. It also requires Exxon to pay for cancer screenings, and it acknowledges the upheaval caused by the huge spill by awarding millions of dollars for emotional distress.

A lawyer for Exxon Mobil Corp. yesterday promised the residents of a Baltimore County neighborhood that the company would "pay money damages to the people who were harmed" by a 26,000-gallon gasoline leak that contaminated the groundwater beneath their homes two years ago. "We want to make it right," the lawyer, James F. Sanders, said at the start of a trial in which 309 plaintiffs are trying to paint the oil giant as a careless steward of its facilities and...

In another important decision delivered this week, the Supreme Court cut the punitive damages imposed on ExxonMobil Corp. for the calamitous Exxon Valdez oil spill 19 years ago by $2 billion, leaving fishermen, native Alaskans and local landowners with just 20 percent of an award previously approved by a federal appeals court. That disappointing outcome of a case reminiscent of Dickens' Bleak House in its torturous 13-year history threatens to offer more bad news in the future for plaintiffs in cases involving claims of major harm for large classes of victims.

A Montgomery County jury awarded four Harford County families approximately $100,000 each in punitive damages yesterday after finding a national homebuilding company had not disclosed that wells on their property were contaminated. The amount awarded by the jury was significantly less than the $5 million the Fallston families' attorneys had requested for each client. The families sued D.R. Horton, a Texas-based Fortune 500 company, for fraud, misrepresentation of facts, deceptive trade practices and breach of warranty.

WASHINGTON -- Exxon Mobil Corp. made its final appeal yesterday to the Supreme Court to throw out a $2.5 billion verdict against the oil giant for its role in the 1989 spill of 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. In a 90-minute hearing on the Exxon Valdez case, the company argued that maritime law has little precedent for levying punitive damages against a company for the actions of its agents at sea. The case is unusual in that Exxon based its appeal on maritime law, specifically an 1818 case that holds ship owners aren't liable for their agents at sea unless they're complicit in their behavior.

The Howard County Board of Education has until Jan. 3 to decide whether to appeal a recent decision by a Circuit Court judge in a discrimination lawsuit won by a former Centennial High School English teacher. In the decision, Judge Lenore R. Gelfman upheld the jury's verdict in the case but reduced the amount awarded to Michelle Maupin by $62,000 because of an error that improperly awarded damages for the same acts based on both state and federal statutes. "It was an impermissible double recovery," said Maupin's lawyer, Mike Coyle.

Mike Psenicska says he's tried to be a good sport about his unwitting big-screen debut in the blockbuster Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He went to see the movie with his family. He has answered strangers' questions about his sudden celebrity, has smiled for pictures and, he says, even autographed one teenager's wrist. But the 64-year-old Perry Hall driving instructor says he didn't seek the attention, and he was hoping yesterday's snow would allow news of his lawsuit against the filmmakers to come out without too much notice.

Exxon Mobil Corp. is facing more lawsuits over the 25,000-gallon gasoline leak this year from one of its service stations that fouled ground water in the Jacksonville area of Baltimore County. With at least two suits over the leak already lodged against the oil company, an additional 50 claims from Jacksonville-area families seeking a collective $1 billion in punitive damages are to be filed today, said Stephen L. Snyder, their attorney. The lawsuits accuse Exxon Mobil of negligence for allowing the gas to leak from an underground fuel line at the station.

A federal judge edged closer yesterday to throwing out a $45,001 judgment against two correctional officers who, a jury decided, used excessive force against a state inmate. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett held a hearing in Baltimore yesterday on the state's motions that he set aside the jury verdict, order a new trial or reduce the monetary damages that the federal jury awarded to Norman R. Willis, 37. Bennett said that the jury might not have followed the standard for excessive force established by the courts and explained in instructions from the judge.