Jeffrey W. Stempel

Tainted Love: An Increasingly Odd Arbitral Infatuation in Derogation of Sound and Consistent Jurisprudence

Collectively, the U.S. Supreme Court, even if not “in love” with arbitration, appears to at least have a serious attachment to arbitration, subject to revision only in the service of other questionable preferences, such as support for the comparatively richer and more powerful litigant. In that sense, the Court’s pronounced, but intellectually inconsistent, preferences for arbitration reflect a reckless, impure, or tainted love rather than the type of mature, realistic affection society generally sets forth as exemplary. The Court has an unrealistically sanguine view of the wonders of arbitration—so sanguine that it is willing in most cases to

Punitive Damages in Bad Faith Actions Against Insurers in the USA: The Impact of Campbell v. State Farm

This article provides an overview of the history and practice of punitive damages in the USA, including U.S. Supreme Court resistance to punitive damages beginning in the 1990s. The 2003 Campbell decision continued this doctrinal trend in an case of seemingly egregious insurer “bad faith.” Examining insurance bad faith cases after Campbell, it appears that the Court’s decision had a practical impact as well as a doctrinal impact. Since Campbell, insurers appear to have enjoyed greater judicial protection against punitive damages in bad faith cases, expanding a trend discernable after the Court’s 1996 BMW v. Gore decision. However, the 50 states have not modified their jury instructions on punitive damages since these decisions, seemingly ceding this area to the courts as a matter of federal constitutional review. The 2007 Williams v. Philip Morris decision continued the trend in a non-insurance case, as the court overturned a large punitive award against a tobacco company.