A federal court jury just awarded her $5,000,000 in punitive damages, on top of $75,000 in non-economic compensatory damages. That punitive award will never last.
Punitive damages are not whatever number a jury thinks will send a message. They are constrained by constitutional due-process limits, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that punitive damages must bear a reasonable relationship to compensatory damages. While there's no bright-line rule, single-digit ratios are generally considered acceptable. As the ratio grows, judicial tolerance drops fast.
Here, the ratio is roughly 67 to 1.
That alone puts the verdict in serious jeopardy.
Courts reviewing punitive awards look to three guideposts: (1) how reprehensible the defendant's conduct was, (2) the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, and (3) how the award compares to civil penalties in similar cases.
Even accepting the jury's view of the facts, this is a single-plaintiff retaliation case involving economic and emotional harm — not physical injury, not widespread misconduct, and not conduct at the extreme end of the employer-misbehavior spectrum.
That matters. A lot.
When compensatory damages are relatively low, courts are especially skeptical of massive punitive awards untethered from actual harm. Punitive damages are meant to punish and deter, not to create an arbitrary windfall. At some point, punishment becomes constitutionally excessive.
This verdict crossed that line.
Expect post-trial motions. Expect remittitur. And if necessary, expect appellate intervention. The liability finding may stand. The $5 million number almost certainly will not.
$5,000,000 may grab headlines today. But in the end, it almost certainly won't equal $5,000,000.