Countering the consideration of extra-legal factors in damage award decisions

• Main Author: Carpenter, Tracey Renee
• Format: Others
• Published: FIU Digital Commons 2000
• Subjects: Psychology
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2052; http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3307&context=etd

Compensatory and punitive awards were created to serve two separate and distinct purposes: to compensate the plaintiff for his/her injuries and to punish the defendant for negligent conduct, respectively. Thus, defendant characteristics should have no impact on compensatory award decisions. Extensive research, however, indicates that these extra-legal factors do impact damage awards. The purpose o f this study was to examine whether varying types of judicial instructions could be used to reduce the effects o f such extra-legal considerations, particularly a defendant’s status as an individual or a corporation and defendant reprehensibility. As hypothesized, participants awarded larger compensatory awards in high reprehensibility conditions than in low reprehensibility conditions. There was also a trend to award larger sums o f money when the defendant was a corporation rather than an individual. However, none o f the four levels o f judicial instructions were shown to counter the impact o f either extra-legal consideration.