On the proper magnitude of punitive damages: Mathias v. Accor Economy Lodging, Inc.
2007; Harvard Law Review Association; Volume: 120; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2161-976X
Autores Tópico(s)Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
ResumoI know Judge Posner mainly as scholar--from his extraordinary and truly novel economically oriented writing on law and from our many interchanges over the years about economic analysis of legal issues. But I am aware that he also leads another full professional life in the judicial arena, in which he is one of our country's most influential appeals court judges. It is not hard to understand why. He delivers both quantity and quality. Judge Posner is prolific, having authored more published opinions than any other appellate judge in the federal system in recent years. (1) And Judge Posner's opinions are marked by his ability to go quickly to the core of matters, by the importance he attaches to satisfying the underlying purposes of the law, by his command of language, and even by his ironic sense of humor. I illustrate some of these qualities-in particular, the second--here through commentary on recent opinion of his concerning punitive damages. The case in question, Mathias v. Accor Economy Lodging, Inc., (2) is piquant. The plaintiffs, brother and sister, were bitten by bedbugs during their stay at Motel 6 in downtown Chicago. (3) They sued for compensatory and punitive damages, arguing that the motel was guilty of willful and wanton conduct, having failed to alleviate known risk: In 1998, EcoLab, the extermination service that the motel used, discovered bedbugs in several rooms in the motel and recommended that it be hired to spray every room, for which it would charge the motel only $500; the motel refused. The next year, bedbugs were again discovered in room but EcoLab was asked to spray just that room. The motel tried to negotiate a building sweep [by EcoLab] free of charge, but, not surprisingly, the negotiation failed. By the spring of 2000, the motel's manager started noticing that there were refunds being given by [the] desk clerks and reports coming back from the guests that there were ticks in the rooms and bugs in the rooms that were biting. She looked in some of the rooms and discovered bedbugs.... Further incidents of guests being bitten by insects and demanding AND And receiving refunds led the manager to recommend to her superior in the company that the motel be closed while every room was sprayed, but this was refused. (4) The problem grew, and at certain point began to reach farcical proportions.... Desk clerks were instructed to call the 'bedbugs' 'ticks,' apparently on the theory that customers would be less alarmed, though in fact ticks are more dangerous than bedbugs because they spread Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. (5) The jury awarded each of the two plaintiffs $5000 in compensatory damages and $186,000 in punitive damages, which is 37.2 times compensatory damages. Motel 6 appealed, objecting primarily to the magnitude of punitive damages. (6) Characteristically, Judge Posner stated that to answer the legal question at issue--here, the proper quantum of punitive damages--the court had to proceed from the basic purposes of the law--here, why punitive damages are awarded in the first place. (7) The purpose most important to Judge Posner's reasoning was the achievement of deterrence; specifically, limiting the defendant's ability to profit from its fraud by escaping detection and (private) prosecution. If tortfeasor is 'caught' only half the time..., then when he is caught he should be punished twice as heavily in order to make up for the times he gets away. (8) In other words, Judge Posner's logic was that punitive damages may be required as corrective measure to accomplish proper deterrence; otherwise, Motel 6 might not have had to pay for all the harm it did. (9) How likely was it that Motel 6 would escape liability for its guests' bedbug bites, and how important was the call for punitive damages to induce Motel 6 and similar actors to prevent harms such as those from bedbugs in the future? …
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