I had thought about a judgment reduction and not posted it before. The Jury granted $7 Million in compensatory damages. The WTS is only on the hook for $2.8 million dollars of that those damages, yet they have to pay $21 million dollars in punitive damages. That makes the punitive damages 7.5 times the compensatory damages.
When deciding on punitive damages the courts have said that punitive damages should usually be lower than 4 times the compensatory damages if they are to remain Constitutional. So it is likely that the WTS could have the damages reduced to $8.4 million in punitive damages (a 3 times multiple) and $2.4 million in compensatory damages. $10.8 million is still a lot but it is dramatically less than the original amount.
Wiki:
Punitive damages are a settled principle of common law in the United States. [16] They are generally a matter of state law (although they can also be awarded under Federal maritime law), and thus differ in application from state to state. In many states, including California and Texas, punitive damages are determined based on statute; elsewhere, they may be determined solely based on case law. Many state statutes are the result of insurance industry lobbying to impose "caps" on punitive damages; however, several state courts have struck down these statutory caps as unconstitutional. [17]
The general rule is that punitive damages cannot be awarded for breach of contract. But if an independent tort is committed in a contractual setting, punitive damages can be awarded for the tort. [18] Punitive damages are usually reserved for when the defendant has displayed actual intent to cause harm (such as purposefully rear-ending someone else's car), rather than in cases of mere negligence. [19]
Punitive damages are a focal point of the "tort reform" debate in the United States, where numerous highly-publicized multi-million dollar verdicts have led to a fairly common perception that punitive damage awards tend to be excessive. However, statistical studies by law professors and the Department of Justice have found that punitive damages are only awarded in two percent of civil cases which go to trial, and that the median punitive damage award is between $38,000 and $50,000. [17]
There is no maximum dollar amount of punitive damages that a defendant can be ordered to pay. In response to judges and juries which award high punitive damages verdicts, the Supreme Court of the United Stateshas made several decisions which limit awards of punitive damages through the due process of law clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In a number of cases, the Court has indicated that a 4:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages is high enough to lead to a finding of constitutional impropriety, and that any ratio of 10:1 or higher is almost certainly unconstitutional.
In Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants (1994), a very high and therefore often criticized amount of damages were awarded to a woman who burned herself with hot coffee she purchased from McDonald's.
In BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore (1996), the Court ruled that an excessive punitive award can amount to an arbitrary deprivation of property in violation of due process. The Court held that punitive damages must be reasonable, as determined by the degree of reprehensibility of the conduct that caused the plaintiff's injury, the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages, and any comparable criminal or civil penalties applicable to the conduct. In State Farm Auto. Ins. v. Campbell (2003), the Court held that punitive damages may only be based on the acts of the defendants which harmed the plaintiffs. The Court also elaborated on the factors courts must apply when reviewing a punitive award under due process principles.
Most recently, in Philip Morris USA v. Williams (2007), the Court ruled that punitive damage awards cannot be imposed for the direct harm that the misconduct caused others, but may consider harm to others as a function of determining how reprehensible it was. More reprehensible misconduct justifies a larger punitive damage award, just as a repeat offender in criminal law may be punished with a tougher sentence. Dissenting in the Williams case, Justice John Paul Stevens found that the "nuance eludes me," suggesting that the majority had resolved the case on a distinction that makes no difference.