Also known as: egregious misconduct · outrageous conduct
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct so extreme and outrageous that it exceeds all bounds of decency and is utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Such conduct supports liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress when it intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress. It also justifies punitive damages when it reflects an evil motive or reckless indifference to the rights of others.
Eduardo Enriquez, a warehouse supervisor, learned that Emma Erickson had filed a complaint about unsafe conditions. He then locked her in a storage closet for two hours while broadcasting false accusations over the intercom that she had stolen from the company. Emma suffered severe anxiety and required medical treatment. The supervisor's actions meet the threshold for extreme and outrageous conduct that supports an IIED claim.
Evergreen Bank officers secretly altered internal risk reports to manufacture a default by Elliot Edmonds even though all payments were current. They accelerated the loan and seized collateral worth far more than the balance. The deliberate falsification to seize appreciating assets without any contractual basis constitutes outrageous conduct that warrants punitive damages.
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Echelon Security was found liable for a minor data breach that caused $10,000 in compensatory damages. The jury awarded $2 million in punitive damages after evidence showed the company had ignored repeated internal warnings about its security flaws. Because the ratio greatly exceeded single-digit multiples and the conduct was not among the rare cases of particularly egregious acts with minimal harm, the award violated due process limits.
Punitive damages are unavailable for a pure breach of contract. They become available only when the breach is accompanied by separate tortious conduct that itself satisfies the standard for outrageous or egregious behavior under tort principles.
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Yes. Survival statutes preserve compensatory damages against a decedent's estate but terminate the purely penal component of punitive damages because punishment and deterrence of the individual wrongdoer can no longer be achieved.
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A grossly disproportionate ratio raises due process concerns. With rare exceptions for particularly egregious conduct paired with minimal compensatory damages, punitive awards generally should not exceed a single-digit multiple of the compensatory award.
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