A study supervised by J. Clark Kelso, newly named scholar-in-residence of the Administrative Office of Courts, found the size and total amounts of punitive damage verdicts increased during the 1990s, with an average of $13.1 million per case.

“These findings show the trend identified in the early ’90s is continuing,” said John H. Sullivan, president of the CJAC. “The alarms are sounding. It’s time California grabbed this runaway monster by the horns.”

In San Diego County, the median punitive award was $122,000. That’s compared to the punitive award in Los Angeles of $250,000 - the third-largest median after Contra Costa ($625,000) and Sacramento ($475,000).

Kelso’s study consisted of 489 cases in which punitive damages had been awarded in the state between Jan. 1, 1991, and Dec. 31, 2000. The study found punitive damages accounted for approximately 88.4 percent of the total amount of compensatory and punitive damages awarded to plaintiffs.

The current system of determining punitive damages has been widely criticized. The CJAC is endorsing legislation - Assembly Bill 840, proposed by Assemblyman Robert Pacheco, D-Walnut - that would limit punitive damage awards against small businesses to three times the “actual” damages awarded at trial. For other defendants, the bill would allow full appellate court review of awards in excess of three times actual damages.

“The personal-injury lawyers who make billions from these awards repeatedly say that punitive damage verdicts are rare,” Sullivan said. “What they don’t tell people is that jury verdicts of any kind are rare. The vast majority of cases are settled or otherwise ended before they ever get to a jury.”