Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We take advantage of the Supreme Court’s 1996 decision in BMW v. Gore to investigate the role of legal and political factors in how state courts of last resort deal with claims of excessive damage from 1989 to 2003. In the BMW decision, the Supreme Court established a very specific multi-factor test for assessing whether a punitive damages award is unconstitutionally excessive. Has this precedent been successful in limiting excessive damage awards? While legal models of judicial decision-making would suggest that this precedent should have a controlling effect on state supreme courts, political models of decision-making suggest that the political preferences of state judicial actors, politicians, and voters should be better predictors of court behavior. We investigate hypotheses derived from these perspectives to condition in which excessive damage awards. are upheld. We test our hypotheses on a random sample of all state supreme court cases from 1989 to 2003 in which the court decided whether punitive damages were excessive. These data come from both before and after the BMW decision, allowing us to control for fact patterns and to better explore the causal effect of precedent and state politics.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Conventional wisdom suggests that punitive damages are growing out of control. To stop judges and juries from awarding blockbuster punitive damages, a number of states have passed caps which set a ceiling on the amount of punitives. In principle, if judges and juries wish to circumvent such caps, they could simply increase the amount of compensatory damages awarded. To investigate this possibility, we examine data from the Civil Justice Survey performed by the National Center for State Courts and demonstrate, in a triple differences framework, that punitive damage caps lead to a statistically significant increase in compensatory damage awards. This effect is robust to using various contemporaneous within-state counterfactual controls. These results suggest that caps alone are a poor way to constrain damage awards.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: On one hand, most of the well-known theories of environment-society relationships describe environmental damage as being a relatively straightforrward reflection of the overall scope of economic activity. On the other hand, recent work on "ecological modernization" and related concepts has argued that it may be possible to improve environmental quality while simultaneously strengthening the economy. Newer work on "the double diversion" offers one possibility for resolving the differences in views; this work rests on the disproportionality hypothesis, namely that a very high proportion of all environmental harm comes from a surprisingly small fraction of all economic activity, or the "diversion" of natural resources to a privileged, small fraction of all economic actors. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test indicates that the hypothesis of proportionality can be rejected at high levels of confidence, while expectations for log-normal distributions generally cannot be rejected.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Teamwork is among the most examined topics, both in scholarly work and popular treatments (Bacon & Blyton, 2005; Gordon, 1992; Ju & Cushman, 1995; Larson & LaFasto, 1989; MacMillan, 2001; Stevens & Campion, 1994). Despite the dramatic increase in teams, and correlative focus on teamwork, aversion to collaborating with others in team structure is widespread. In this article we analyze, from a multilevel perspective, the causes and explanations for the dark side of teamwork. We begin by explicating teams with teamwork -- the bright side, including the dimensions along which teamwork must be built for teams to be effective. Next, we turn to the dark side, first conceptualizing it and then outlining a framework for understanding the dark side of teamwork. In the main portion of the article we identify and discuss numerous subordinate level (individual, dyad, subgroup), group level, and supraordinate level (organization, environment) factors that contribute to the dark side. We conclude with a cross-level illustration of a dark side dynamic, as well as the implications of our analysis of dark side dynamics that undermine teamwork.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although sexual harassment complainants often experience harassment-based psychological injuries, few studies have focused on the impact of psychological injury on liability and damage award determinations. The present study assessed whether the severity of psychological injury and type of legal standard (reasonable person vs. woman) affected mock juror’s decisions in two hostile environment sexual harassment cases. Participants high in hostile sexism found less liability and awarded lower damages than low hostile sexist participants. In addition, the presentation of mild psychological injury (compared to high or no psychological injury) increased damage awards for participants who reflected and applied the reasonable woman standard.