Originally Posted by
CollegeFlyer
..And...even if the IRS is getting a cut...it still doesn't follow (as was originally asserted by the other poster) that punitive damage statutes were designed to bribe bribe greedy state legislatures.
But I also clearly stated - in the same post - that I was wrong p .
Bribing (or bribe birbe how you put it) very likely is the - legally speaking - wrong term anyway. But as some states do have caps and restrictions on punitive damages and others do not means that the state legislators must have some involvement. Possibly for the reasons stated here by other posters.
The subject also is a permanent bone of contention with the EU whose systems are predominantly Roman law based. I partly liked the view aired in a French article demanding that the liability cases combined should be accounted for as a tariff and added to the other tariffs and fees (such as customs charges, VAT, luxury, and withholding taxes) to assess the total tariff a nation does impose. I guess I adopted parts of this view.