Conflict of Laws has an interesting post about a recent decision by the French Supreme Court for private and criminal matters (Cour de Cassation). According to the post, and I'll have to take their word for it since I can't read French, the French court held that foreign punitive damages awards do not violate public policy per se. That's a departure from the French appellate decision discussed here.
The French Supreme Court went on to say, however, that a foreign punitive damages award would violate public policy if it were disproportionate to the plaintiff's harm. The particular punitive damages award at issue (awarded by a California jury judge) was $1.46 million. The compensatory damages award was $1.39 million. The French Supreme Court found the punitive damages award to be "clearly" disproportionate to the actual harm, and therefore unenforceable.
Thanks to professor François-Xavier Licari for alerting me to this story.
December 16, 2010
French Supreme Court rules that American punitive damages awards are enforceable, as long as they don't exceed compensatory damages
Posted by
Curt Cutting
at
3:42 PM
Labels: Foreign Courts