Punitive Damages
The Civil Remedy in American Law, Lessons and Caveats for Continental Europe
Description:... The punitive damages doctrine, traditionally a common law doctrine that originates in England and the United States, is customary in common law countries but until now it is alien to continental European legal systems. Policymakers and legal scholars in Europe, however, increasingly exchange ideas about the potential advantages of the civil sanction. The European attention for punitive damages primarily results from changing policy views, to be precise the increased interest in private enforcement of several legal fields, on both the European Union and national level, and in introducing more powerful civil sanctions to improve the enforcement of tort law standards and to deal with situations of serious wrongdoing. However, despite this development, the introduction of punitive damages in continental Europe does not seem to be a workable proposal at this point in time. The idea simply encounters too much resistance, which is not only caused by a number of obstacles that are intrinsic to the civil law tradition but also by an incorrect perception of the American reality of punitive damages. The main objective of this book is to increase the understanding of the civil sanction as such, because only a correct knowledge of the facts relating to the sanction can create the possibility to participate in the European punitive damages debate in a fair manner.
Show description