If you have been seriously injured in an Oregon car accident, you need an experienced Portland auto accident attorney to help you recover financially. This probably isn't news to you. You probably also know that your financial recovery can include things like lost wages and out-of-pocket medical bills. These are known as economic damages.
You've likely also hear the term 'pain and suffering.' These noneconomic damages are designed to compensate an Oregon car crash injury victims for the less tangible elements of injury.
Oregon law also provides for a third, lesser known type of damages known as punitive damages. Punitive damages are completely different and distinct from their compensatory damages counterparts (economic and noneconomic damages). Punitive damages are designed not to provide the car accident victim with compensation, but to punish the wrongdoer.
Punitive damages are not available in every state. But the State of Oregon has made the policy decision that money damages designed to punish serve an important deterrent function and augment the criminal court system.
Punitive damages are not available in every case. They are available only where the wrongdoer has engaged in malicious, intentional or extraordinarily reckless conduct. The latter category of conduct is what typically comes up in the context of car accidents.
What constitutes conduct egregious enough depends on the facts of the case and the views of the jury. An experienced Portland car accident lawyer can frame your case in a way that maximizes your chances of recovering punitive damages. For example, one jury who hears argument from a particular Portland auto injury attorney might find that a drunk driving car accident was particularly egregious if the driver blew 3 times the legal limit and caused a fatal car accident. Another jury might award no punitive damages where a drunk driver blew a .1 and caused a fender bender resulting in whiplash or another relatively minor back injury.
Punitive damages are also not unlimited. They are typically limited to some multiple (usually 3 or 4 times) of your compensatory damages. This means, that in the typical case, if the jury decided the at fault driver caused you $100,000 in economic and non-economic damages, the punitive damages would be limited to $300,000 or $400,000. This limitation is more rule of thumb than hard and fast bright line. There are exceptions. For example, if you've suffered relatively smaller injuries, say $10,000 worth but it was a particularly egregious, a jury would likely be allowed to go over the 3 or 4 to one ratio-sometimes far over.
Accident injury victims who successfully prosecute a claim for punitive damages aren't entitled to the full award. Because punitive damages are designed to punish the negligent actor, not compensate the victim, the State of Oregon has passed a law requiring 60% of all punitive damage awards to go to the Oregon crime victim's fund that helps the families of crime victims get on with their lives.
All-in-all, punitive damages are a very powerful tool of our nation's legal system. The best Portland personal injury attorneys know how to use this tool in your case when necessary.