Political Quotes

“the Senator from Iowa assumes the question of deterrence, misconstrues the actual impact of punitive damages, and totally misstates the provision that he purports to amend. There is no $250,000 punitive damage cap. In the case of serious injuries, for anything other than the small business, which is exempted both in the bill and in the amendment of the Senator from Iowa, for anything other than a small business, the cap is $250,000 only if the damages to the plaintiff are minimal. In the cases repeatedly cited by the Senator from Iowa, the individual maimed for life--that was the last quotation I remember--it is obvious that the economic damages to that individual together with the award for pain and suffering, unlimited by any feature of this bill, added together and multiplied by two is infinitely greater than $250,000. Every week in the United States we have compensatory damage awards well up into the millions of dollars, and in each of those cases, except for the very, very small business, the maximum award of punitive damages on the part of the jury under the bill as it exists now is twice whatever those damages are. The $250,000 figure was only put back into this proposal to say that you could go that high in case of a jury award for actual damages that was extremely small. And, Mr. President, if a claimant goes all the way through a trial and proves that his or her damages are only $10,000, why should we allow a $4 million punitive damage award?”