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7 - Punitive Damages as Retributive Sanctions for Violations of Societal Trust

from Part III - Retribution in the Mass-Market Setting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2025

María Guadalupe Martínez Alles
Affiliation:
University of Denver
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Summary

This chapter sets the stage for further examination of the possibility that punitive damages in product liability litigation represent an institution that not only empowers consumers for ex post private redress but also provides a legitimate channel to communicate self-regard through the courts by denouncing the open violations of societal trust that manufacturers’ wrongful behaviors convey when they fail to fulfill consumers’ safety expectations by prioritizing their own private gain over the risk of significant harm to consumers. The chapter advances an understanding of punitive damages in the product liability context centered on consumers’ betrayal aversion as the retributive motivation that responds to violations of societal trust in the marketplace. By contrasting expert versus layperson approaches to “societal trust,” the chapter argues that punitive damages should be understood as relational retributive sanctions that communicate disapproval for purposes of the victims’ self-assertion, not as prices solely meant to fine-tune cost–benefit formulas in the interest of optimal deterrence. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to explore the expressive dimension of punitive awards that is worth maintaining. This dimension becomes clear when we distinguish retribution from deterrence in cases where corporations blatantly violate societal trust in the mass-market context.

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Torts and Retribution
The Case for Punitive Damages
, pp. 186 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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