Statutory caps on punitive damages have been in the news a lot lately. Continuing that trend, Reuters reports that a Texas judge has reduced a punitive damages award against Boston Scientific Corp. from $50 million to $11.2 million in a lawsuit involving allegedly defective vaginal mesh implants.
The court reduced the punitive damages pursuant to Texas’s statutory cap, which limits punitive damages to double the economic damages, plus an additional amount of up to $750,000 in non-economic damages. Texas plaintiffs have already tried unsuccessfully to challenge the constitutionality of the cap. Perhaps they’ll take another run at it in this case.
The Reuters story reports that the compensatory damages award in this case was $23 million. That must have included about $5.23 million in economic damages (2 times $5.23 million plus $750,000 equals about $11.2 million).
