To the extent that those actions are illegal and the employee is coerced or directed by his leaders, the corporation, or at least the manager making the command, is responsible in the eyes of the court. That is as it should be.
We all know that almost never happens now, so the primary effect of getting rid of punitive damages would be to remove all disincentive for corporations to misbehave. The end result of that would probably be more regulation, micro-management by government oversight.
Actually, it does. If it is illegal, it can be prosecuted. Corporations notwithstanding, if someone does something illegal, they stand to be prosecuted if caught. And generally, despite media coverage to the contrary, they do get caught. I don't see the need for additional government oversight - there's too much now in most cases.
Punitive damages, with all their drawbacks, are certainly preferable to that, IMHO.
I have to disagree. Punative damages have gotten way out of hand. And they are almost always based on junk science or misinformation. That is why folks are skeptical on this thread. Lawyers shop for good courts and enjoy the laws of averages. For every jurisdiction that throws out or defeats a case, there is another that may give a win. They will gladly take 100 losses if there is 1 win because it provides financial input for the profession as a whole. Most lawyers, like most people, like money. They just don't want to produce anything to get it.
I've had a case where the amount needed to repair fire damage properly was $20k. The adjuster was going to offer them $10k. He looked me in the eye and said, "They're old, black and poor. What are they going to do about it?" The answer was they accepted the 10 grand.
The question is, did the insurance adjuster underestimate or did you overestimate. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there's two parties to this and I've only heard one.
If a corporation has strong financial incentives to behave badly, it needs at least some financial counter-incentive to avoid such behavior. Punitive damages, for all their faults, provide that counter-incentive. (Well, sometimes they do.) :)
I agree to a point. But, fraud and other laws dictate criminal behavior, corporate or otherwise. And corporate officers aren't always privy to acts of an individual trying to climb the ladder. And, shareholders aren't any more knowledgable than officers and are generally less so.
I just won't buy the corporate image as portrayed by the media that shows all corporate officers to be thiefs or worse. That image just doesn't portray the vast majority of corporate leaders.
I agree. However, how many officers spend as much energy ensuring their subordinates did the right thing as they do that they did the profitable thing? Not very many.
I strongly suspect there is a lot of plausible deniability going on.
Corporations have strong financial incentives to cheat. They only have the moral character of their officers and employees, plus the fear of getting caught, to prevent them from doing so. I think it's pretty obvious which is the stronger incentive. Especially in today's world, where morality has been mocked for 35 years.
Perhaps I was unclear. The adjuster admitted to me that it would cost $20,000 to repair the property correctly. He just didn't care, and believed he could get away with it. He was right.
Of course, I can't prove any of this, but it has stuck in my craw for 15 years.
And that's only the most egregious of literally thousands of similar situations I've dealt with over 30+ years.