Punitive Damages in Financial Injury Jury Verdicts.

Studies of civil jury verdicts have been a prominent feature of the Institute for Civil Justice's research agenda since its inception. This work has included the creation of a database for the analysis of jury verdicts and descriptive and analytic studies of verdict trends. Our current research extends our jury verdict work in two significant directions: First, it provides additional detail about punitive damage awards in cases in our existing database in which the plaintiff complains of financial injuries--cases in which punitive damages are awarded relatively more frequently than in other types of cases. Second, the database has been extended to include verdicts reached in Alabama from 1992 to 1997. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.