Your Nov. 2 editorial "Excessive punitive damages," about Philip Morris v. Williams, pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, argues that punitive damages "must bear some common-sense relationship to actual harm proved." When I appeared before that court as counsel last week, I argued in favor of the same principle.
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Internal corporate documents introduced in evidence exposed a deliberate, expensive and carefully orchestrated campaign to convince smokers that smoking was not unhealthy and the nicotine in cigarettes were not addictive, even though the company knew these were lies. The company congratulated itself on the campaign's multibillion-dollar success, calling it "brilliantly conceived and executed." It was for that still-unreconstructed behavior that punitive damages were properly awarded.
How else can such profitable misconduct be deterred and such a company held accountable? Before the Supreme Court case, the state of Oregon, where this case was tried eight years ago, argued that state legislation properly authorizes "punitive damages to punish past misconduct and ... deter future injurious conduct." Ten other states joined that brief because they had similar legislation.
The Oregon Legislature enacted criteria that assures punitive damages advance a public purpose in support of health and safety, hold miscreants accountable and allow juries to punish misconduct that generates profits particularly hard. Also, by law, 60 percent of any punitive damage award goes into a state crime victim's fund.
When misconduct is this reprehensible and this profitable, a proper judgment is not measured by some multiple of the damages awarded for the death of a retired school janitor, which included only his medical bills, burial costs and lost companionship. Instead, punitive damages must be proportioned to the enormity of the misconduct and not artificially capped at a number that the Constitution neither states nor implies.
The jury awarded a proper amount, given the gravity of the offense, which the Oregon appellate courts unanimously upheld. Neither due process nor existing precedent requires anything different.
Robert S. Peck
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE WRITER IS PRESIDENT OF THE CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION.
Separation of powers
To the editor:
Although there is little love lost between me and Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons because of his neo-conservatism, I cannot overlook the fact that Dina Titus, the Democratic nominee, has gotten away with brazenly violating the separation of powers doctrine in the Nevada Constitution by serving as a state employee in the executive branch (a professor of political science at UNLV) while at the same time serving in the Nevada Legislature as a state senator.
Sen. Titus even bragged about how she overcame the attorney general's argument that she violated the Nevada Constitution, defending the state Supreme Court's denial of the attorney general's writ with bewildering, esoteric technicalities to support her case, and arrogated to herself the right to serve in both branches because of her personal qualities.
It seems that Sen. Titus has ideological allies in high places that permit the cult of personality to supersede the rule of law.
Should we have a governor like her in Carson City?
Frank M. Pelteson
LAS VEGAS
Water shortage
To the editor:
Southern Nevada water chief Pat Mulroy talks of rate hikes to remind us of the value of water. The only evidence of a water shortage I see is the ring around Lake Mead and more obstacles in the water each time I take my boat out.
Otherwise, I read daily of all the new building permits being issued, the shortage of doctors, nurses and teachers because of all the new arrivals, and new homes popping up all over.
Maybe she needs to spend more time reminding her colleagues and our elected officials that there is a definite water shortage, and their plans for growth need to take that fact into consideration.
When will they try to limit us to taking baths or showers on our assigned watering days?
Bill Wilson
HENDERSON
Women's work
To the editor:
According to Thursday's letter from Betty Buehler, the reason school police got a raise instead of teachers is that the police are mainly men and teaching ranks are overrun with a "glut" of women who tend to be "slaves" and don't "fight" for a raise in front of the Clark County School Board.
Bella Abzug must be spinning. That argument is 20-plus years old. Have women made no progress?
The last time I looked, the School Board was made up of six women (underpaid slaves?) and one man. Yet Ms. Buehler is afraid to appear before the board to plead her case? Has the sisterhood lost so much ground?
With this kind defeatist attitude, it's no wonder our kids have to take remedial courses in college.
