Suppose that Jane lives in Illinois, and she provides help to 30 women in Texas in obtaining abortions. Now suppose that 20 people in various states sue her under Texas law, which says that you can be sued for $10,000 for doing this. Can each person successfully sue Jane 30 times, making her liable for a total of 30x20x$10,000, or six million dollars?
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It’s a Texas state law; none of the 20 persons could sue Jane in any state other than in Texas, and generally only in the state courts of Texas, and not in federal court.
So, for these reasons only, the amount in controversy could not exceed $300,000, as Jane could only be ordered to pay $10,000 for each violation (see, e.g., Does double jeopardy apply to the Texas abortion bill?) and sued only in Texas.
It’s questionable whether a judge would hand down a $300,000 punitive damage order when the interest of the state in deterring recidivism or imitation of outlawed conduct would probably be achieved against an average Jane by a much lower punitive damage amount. Analogously to other types of punitive damages, most likely the maximum multiplier would be less than 10x or less than $100,000 even with 30 violations.
kisspuska
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No. The law prohibits a court from awarding damages against a person who has already paid the full amount of damages for the conduct at issue in the lawsuit.
bdb484
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