Punitive Damages

ANNAPOLIS -- A bill to limit how punitive damages are awarded in Maryland cleared the House of Delegates yesterday but faces a tough battle in the Senate.The House voted 83-43 for House Bill 329, which its supporters say would bring some much-needed element of predictability to the awards.Business groups say the restrictions are needed to help reduce the growing costs of undeserved lawsuits and to make Maryland and U.S. companies competitive with their foreign counterparts.Opponents argued that the bill would remove the incentives for companies to guard against employee wrongdoing.

IN A CASE involving a BMW damaged in shipping, then repainted and sold as new, the Supreme Court on May 20 gave the political right one of its fondest wishes -- tougher, but still unclear, limits on punitive damages in product-liability cases.Business has complained that the prospect of punitive awards like the $4 million an Alabama court awarded in BMW of North America v. Gore stifled innovation, especially drug research.Consumer activists say punitive awards were never a threat to any but the most flagrant lawbreakers -- notably asbestos companies -- so they insist the case will change little, especially in Maryland, whose law makes it harder to get punitive awards than almost any other state.

Maryland's highest court has handed Alexander & Alexander Services Inc. a victory by striking down a punitive damage award that initially was one of the highest such legal awards in the state's history.The opinion also lauds the virtues of business competition, acknowledging that aggressive marketplace tactics can intentionally hurt a competitor.The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that A&A, a New York-based insurance brokerage, did not maliciously harm Hunt Valley insurance broker B. Dixon Evander by interfering with Mr. Evander's business relationship with another firm.

Businesses throughout Maryland turned out in Annapolis yesterday to fight a pair of bills that would make it easier for victims to recover money from companies and people deemed responsible for their injuries.Arguing that it would hurt the state's business climate, the Glendening administration opposed a measure that would loosen restrictions on awarding punitive damages.The bill, introduced on behalf of Orioles owner and Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos, could mean millions of dollars for plaintiffs -- including Mr. Angelos' clients who have suffered from exposure to asbestos.

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland's business community came out in force yesterday to fight for legislation that it says would make punitive damages more predictable and solve one of the most serious threats to the state's economic competitiveness."

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.

ANNAPOLIS -- A bill to limit how punitive damages are awarded in Maryland cleared the House of Delegates yesterday but faces a tough battle in the Senate.The House voted 83-43 for House Bill 329, which its supporters say would bring some much-needed element of predictability to the awards.Business groups, the primary supporters of the bill, say the restrictions are needed to help reduce the growing costs of undeserved lawsuits and to make Maryland and U.S. companies competitive with their foreign counterparts.

ANNAPOLIS -- One of the most intense lobbying campaigns in years ended yesterday as a Senate panel killed a bill that would TTC have restricted the award of punitive damages in Maryland.The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee's 8-3 vote against House Bill 329 marked a hard-fought victory for plaintiffs' lawyers, labor unions and consumer groups, who had branded the bill special interest legislation for big business.The measure would have been overkill, trial lawyers said. They noted that a February Maryland Court of Appeals ruling went a long way toward restricting punitive damages, which are awarded in addition to the money intended to compensate victims for their injuries.

ANNAPOLIS -- The concept seems so simple to Sen. John A. Pica Jr. that he can't understand why he has to keep coming back each year to fight for it:If an insurance company fails to pay claims when it should and acts "intentionally and wrongfully," a customer can sue the company and ask for "punitive" damages to say that kind of behavior won't be tolerated.That's the idea behind a "bad faith" bill the Baltimore Democrat presented to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday.If Mr. Pica can't understand why the bill continues to fail, he need look no further than the dozen or so lobbyists who have signed up to oppose the measure for their clients -- members of the insurance industry.