What Kinds of Cases Warrant a Punitive Damage Award?

Punitive damages have a unique place in the law. Unlike many other forms of damages, which are meant to make a victim whole, or compensate him or her for losses, punitive damages serve a different purpose: to punish a wrongdoer, and deter that person or society from doing the same thing in the future.

Permission From the Judge

Because they are unique that way, punitive damages aren’t easy to get. You not only need a judge’s permission to even ask for punitive damages, but you only get them in certain situations—generally situations where the wrongdoer’s behavior is considered egregious, wanton, knowing, and willful.

DUI Cases

One of the most common cases where punitive damages are awarded, are in DUI cases. Regardless of how the Defendant’s criminal case may have turned out, in your civil, injury negligence case, if you can show that the Defendant was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and caused an accident, you can ask a court for punitive damages.

Texting Behind the Wheel

At this point, with the media and publicity, it should be plainly obvious just how dangerous texting behind the wheel really is. While there is no law that specifically says that you can or cannot get punitive damages against someone who causes an accident because he is texting while driving, it is a very persuasive argument to make.

Someone who is ignoring what is at this point a well known hazard, is a candidate for punitive damages.

Hit and Run

Hit and runs are not only criminal, but in civil court, can warrant an award of punitive damages. Even in an accident which is, by definition, not intentional, the act of driving away after the accident is often intentional—and any intentional or knowing act like that, can lead to an award of punitive damages.

Trucking Accidents

In any industry where there are a lot of regulations, there can be punitive damages when those regulations are violated—especially if the violation is repeated, or significant. This often happens in trucking accident cases, where companies, in a rush to move cargo, ignore safety regulations, and then end up causing accidents.

Property or Premises Liability Accidents

Although the typical fall case doesn’t warrant awards of punitive damages, there are situations where a property owner so ignores its duties, or ignores a dangerous condition for so long, that its behavior can be said to be knowing or willful.

That’s especially true when people are injured by an openly dangerous condition—for example, imagine a property owner who knowingly leaves live wires sticking out, electrocuting someone, or a pool owner who allows young kids to swim without supervision, and a child gets injured.

This also happens in areas where there is dangerous or heavy machinery that ends up injuring people, like on construction sites.

Are you entitled to punitive damages after your accident? You may be. Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today for help after your accident.

Sources:

advocatemagazine.com/article/2015-october/evidence-for-punitive-damages-in-common-types-of-negligence-cases

lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ffda1144-270d-494b-9ea0-6aebecefa1d2