Montana jury awards $240 million in punitive damages against Hyundai

The Associated Press reports that a jury in Montana has awarded $8.6 million in compensatory damages and $240 million in punitive damages against Hyundai in a manufacturing defect case.  The plaintiffs contend that a steering defect in a 2005 Hyundai Tiburon caused a crash resulting in the deaths of two teenage boys.  This punitive damages award doesn’t seem likely to survive very long, in light of Montana’s statutory cap limiting punitive damages to $10 million.