John Hope Bryant: “Mr. Sensenbrenner, as we all know, the purpose of punitive damages is to deter manufacturers of dangerous products from…”

“Mr. Sensenbrenner, as we all know, the purpose of punitive damages is to deter manufacturers of dangerous products from being willing to put the dangerous products on the market because they might hurt somebody. As we all know, because we are all human beings, some companies have done this, there will always be someone willing to do that, and we want them to be afraid to do it because if they do do it, they could get socked with punitive damages. That is the purpose of punitive damages. You are taking these out of the bill. Basically, you are saying the cap on punitive damages is $250,000, which is not enough to frighten any major company, or three times earnings. Once again, this is a bill basically for rich folks and it is bill that is going to hurt poor folks, poor working people. Why? Because under the Republican bill, you could get three times your economic damages for punitive damages. So, for a wealthy fellow who is making a lot of money, it is going to be three times a whole lot of money. But for a working person who is not making very much money, it is going to be three times not much, even though they both lost the same thing-- that is, their ability to live a normal life and to make a living for their families. So the rich are going to get plenty of money under your bill, the poor folks are not going to get much at all.”