Full opinion text
DECISION AND ORDER MARRERO, District Judge. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. BACKGROUND.416 II. THE VERDICT .416 III. DEFENDANTS’CHALLENGE .417 A. THE LARGER DEBATE.417 1. History.418 2. Functions and Distinctions of Remedial Damages.422 8. Enduring Concerns Over Punitive Damages.426 a. Lower Protective Standards.426 b. Minimal Jury Guidance.427 c. Improper Considerations.428 d. Windfalls .428 e. Encouraging or Prolonging Unnecessary Litigation.429 f. Overdeterrence.429 g. Defendant’s Wealth .430 h. Indemnification.430 i. Limitations of Judicial Review.430 j. Punitive Damages “Crisis”.431 B. PUNITIVE DAMAGES JURISPRUDENCE.432 1. Reprehensibility.437 a. Misconduct.437 b. Injuries.438 e. Nature of the Parties and Their Relationship.438 2. Proportionality.440 3. Aggravating or Mitigating Circumstances.440 a. Similar or Related Misconduct.440 b. Penalties in Comparable Cases.440 C. APPLICATION OF PUNITIVE DAMAGES DOCTRINE TO THE INSTANT CASE.441 1. The Jury Instructions.441 2. Application of Functions and Variables .442 a. Reprehensibility.442 (i) Misconduct.442 (ii) Injuries.443 (iii) Relationships.444 b. Proportionality.449 c. Aggravating or Mitigating Circumstances.452 (i) Other Related Conduct.452 (ii) Litigation Costs.453 (iii) Penalties in Comparable Cases .454 d. Conclusion.455 IY. REMITTITUR .456 A. COHEN’S NET WORTH AND ABILITY TO PAY.456 B. REMITTITUR AS TO COHEN.461 C. REMITTITUR AS TO IDJ.461 V. ORDER . .461 I. BACKGROUND In a bifurcated trial of this action, the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs TVT Records and TVT Music, Inc. (collectively “TVT”) finding liability against defendant The Island Def Jam Music Group (“IDJ”) for breach of contract and against IDJ and its Chairman, Lyor Cohen (“Cohen,” and collectively with IDJ, the “Defendants”) for tortious interference with contractual relations, fraud by fraudulent concealment, and willful copyright infringement. The same jury, at the damages phase, assessed compensatory and punitive damages against Defendants in the aggregate amount of approximately $132 million. Defendants filed post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b), and for a new trial and/or remittitur pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59. By Decision and Order titled TVT Records v. The Island DEF Jam Music Group, 279 F.Supp.2d 366, 2003 WL 22056304, No. 02 Civ. 6644(VM), slip op. (S.D.N.Y. September 2, 2003) (the “Post-Trial Motions Decision”), issued simultaneously with and accompanying the instant ruling, the Court denied the motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. Defendants’ motions for remittitur are addressed separately in this decision. For the reasons discussed below, Defendants’ motions for remittitur are GRANTED. II. THE VERDICT The facts and events that gave rise to this litigation and upon which the jury’s determination of liability and damages is predicated are summarized in the accompanying Post-Trial Motions Decision, supra, addressing the parties’ other post-trial requests for relief, as well as in numerous prior rulings of this Court resolving other aspects of the case. Portions of this background are recited below as necessary for the purposes of the motions at hand. The compensatory and punitive damages awards the jury returned in respect of TVT’s various claims are summarized in the following chart: III. DEFENDANTS’ CHALLENGE A. THE LARGER DEBATE IDJ and Cohen object to both the propriety of the jury’s verdict awarding punitive damages with regard to the claims at issue, and to the amounts assessed. Defendants contend that the awards are unjustified and unconstitutionally excessive. This challenge touches upon the subject of a major debate still unresolved in American jurisprudence and implicates fundamental questions: in broad terms the propriety, functions and limits of punitive damages in civil litigation. More narrowly addressing this case, the motions ask the Court to decide whether the jury’s imposition of penalties was appropriate, and whether the magnitude of the awards was reasonable under the circumstances presented, or excessive enough to offend constitutional principles of fairness embodied in our justice system. The larger controversy is both fundamental and enduring, encompassing a broad array of issues that, alone or in combination, give rise to substantial constitutional concerns. See, e.g., Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415, 432, 114 S.Ct. 2331, 129 L.Ed.2d 336 (1994) (“Punitive damages pose an acute danger of arbitrary deprivation of property.”); Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 8, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991) (accepting jurisdiction “to review the punitive damages procedures and award in the light of the long-enduring debate about their propriety.”); id. at n. 4, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (citing past and present polemics addressing different perspectives argued in the debate); see also id. at 42, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“Punitive damages are a powerful weapon. Imposed wisely and with restraint, they have the potential to advance legitimate state interests. Imposed indiscriminately, however, they have a devastating potential for harm. Regrettably, common-law procedures for awarding punitive damages fall into the latter category.”); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 350, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974) (“In most jurisdictions jury discretion over the amounts awarded is limited only by the gentle rule that they not be excessive. Consequently, juries assess punitive damages in wholly unpredictable amounts bearing no necessary relation to the actual harm caused.”). The questions yet unsettled in this dispute continue to vex litigants, courts, legislators and members of the general public, and thus present formidable challenges to our legal system. The parties’ conflict over the punitive damages the jury awarded here forms part of that overarching controversy, a piece of a whole the precise contours of which remain in doubt. The modern content and pathways of the law—what a legal doctrine now stands for and where it seems headed — are always best understood as branch-ings of an organic growth, a continuum grounded in the rule’s earliest roots and ramifications. As backdrop for the Court’s review of the issues before it, and as a guide to the considerations that weighed heavily in the Court’s deliberation, an overview of the history, evolution and contemporary scope of punitive damages doctrine may provide helpful context. 1. History The modern doctrine of punitive or exemplary damages has been traced to codes adopted by various ancient civilizations, and later emergence of the remedy in applications reflected in early English statutes and common law. See Oberg, 512 U.S. at 421-24, 114 S.Ct. 2331 (citing early English cases); BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 580-81, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 184 L.Ed.2d 809; Roginsky v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., 378 F.2d 832, 838 (2d Cir.1967). In typical early applications, the remedy was imposed in instances involving severe intentional misconduct causing bodily injury, personal affronts or deprivations of property. Especially noteworthy in the formative precedents were cases evincing a defendant’s abuse of social status, wealth or public office, for. instance through deliberate injuries inflicted by a master assaulting or killing a servant, by a person of great wealth or rank outrageously mistreating a poor one, and by agents of the state misusing authority. See Roginsky, 378 F.2d at 838 (noting the early use of punitive damages for the purposes of “redressing affronts to personal feelings not susceptible of measurement ... financing the cost of deserving litigation where only small compensatory damages can be expected, diverting the plaintiffs desire for revenge into peaceful channels, and serving as punishment for and deterrence from socially disapproved conduct.”) These antecedents are instructive in that they reflect essential aspects of punitive damages doctrine that have endured and carried forward to this day. The common elements that emerged reflect: extreme misconduct ordinarily characterized by purposeful acts deemed intentionally malicious, wilful, wanton, or oppressive; the gravity of the wrongdoing measured in accordance with the reprehensibility of the offender’s state of mind—his affirmative motive or indifference in bringing about particular damage—in relation to the extent of the attendant injuries. By reason of the uniqueness and culpability of the offending acts, the harms caused by such virulent behavior were not deemed adequately compensable by other recognized civil means. Other defining features of contemporary punitive damages rules may also be discerned from the early precedents. Material transgressions were deemed committed not only against the interests of the victim, but also against general public values, or ' both. The overall effects of resulting injuries were intensified because the offender’s behavior was considered not only egregious and unjustifiable but had no acceptable social utility or redeeming public value. And the monetary award conferred upon the complainant was valued in some fixed multiple or augmented to discretionary amounts generally related to appraised harm, the enhanced penalty reflecting the social order’s assessment of moral outrage and its manifestation of the normal retributive impulse evoked by extreme moral transgressions. The larger damages also served to publish an expression of the severity ascribed to particular offenses as publicly warranting a commensurately harsh punitive response. Another salient point, perhaps the most fundamental, emerges from all of the circumstances in which over time punitive damages have been regarded as fitting and proper: an element of substantial dispro-portionality common to and characterizing the various conditions and relationships that marked the situations justifying the remedy. Most prominent in the expression of this feature are: relatively large differences in social rank or economic power or vulnerability often separating the offender and the victim; aggravated misconduct vastly and improperly out of scale with whatever response the circumstances reasonably may have called for; the extent of actual or potential injuries to the victim or the public far exceeding the costs or burdens the wrongdoer would incur in avoiding the large degree of foreseeable risks; significant consequential harm to recognized public values even where the victim’s actual loss may be economically small or intangible but weighs substantially more in relation to the damages assayed in unquantifiable terms, for example, effects on the victim’s human dignity, social equality or moral worth or on general public health, safety or order; considerable social or economic gains derived from severe malfeasance that accrue only to the offender and that, unrectified, would materially enrich the wrongdoer at the expense of the victim’s rights and the public’s interests, and would effectively enable or condone an inequitable distribution of social benefits and duties. These various large asymmetries engendered by unconscionable misdeeds were deemed to produce correspondingly severe interpersonal imbalances and skewings of human relations that threatened to disrupt public safety or social order, thus justifying heavier penalties for the particular civil offenses. Historically, the prototypical punitive damages case continued to follow the pattern of the early applications: intentional wrongs committed usually by a known offender and involving injuries to a single victim. See Roginsky 378 F.2d at 838-39. Later developments in the progression of the doctrine significantly altered the remedial landscape in which exemplary damages were imposed, and laid the groundwork for the contemporary debate framing the issues now before this Court. One outgrowth of this evolution was the extension of the remedy to harms not specifically designed or intended by the wrongdoer but which occurred by reason of his conscious and deliberate disregard for the rights of others, a dimension of conduct also deemed willful or wanton when it caused grave actual or potential harm. See id at 838 (citing W. Prosser, Prosser on Torts § 2, at 10 (1964)). Another significant change ’ emerged from the monumental expansion of the corporate form that developed to govern business management and production. When injuries arose from the business practices or relations of corporations with customers, employees and the public in general, as well as from their competitive behavior with other enterprises, the punitive damages remedy was then extended as a means to redress the ensuing wrongs and ensure corporate compliance with acceptable moral norms and commercial policies. As corporate business spread, so did the incidence of wrongful outrages and excesses that inflicted harms through intentional acts or gross carelessness of the corporation and its agents. See generally Rustad and Koenig, supra at 1294-97 and accompanying notes. Concomitantly, the application of punitive damages also grew as a remedial device to offset the now much greater disproportions in pertinent relationships that were brought about by extreme corporate misconduct and its various social, economic and legal effects. For a variety of related reasons, this development produced the perception or reality of the phenomenon that underlies the current debate: a significant proliferation in the incidence and size of punitive damages awards. In the expanded corporate form, certain industries located and transacted business in multiple jurisdictions. As a consequence, several new dimensions and complexities were introduced into the punitive damages controversy spawned by the rise of litigation, significantly altering the realities and economics of the remedy. One essential aspect of the contemporary debate is the shift in motives and driving force associated with the underlying wrongful deeds. In the modern trend, the extreme misconduct giving rise to claims for punitive damages more commonly entails not the intentional malicious act of an individual offender, but, rather, acts committed by corporate agents typically involving defective operations or gross carelessness in the production of goods or services. These deficiencies in turn create health and safety hazards that cause actual or potential injury to large numbers of consumers, employees and/or the general public. Thus, while in the early prototypes the gratuitous moral wrong inflicted by one individual upon another generally had no connection to any activity of public value, the punished misconduct that characterizes the contemporary debate more frequently is profit-driven and entails calculated business risks at least colorably associated with production of goods or services having some social utility. Several vital features mark the shift and shape modern punitive damages controversies: rather than the open and deliberate or wanton act of a known individual offender, the corporate misconduct, by reason of the greater complexity of production processes, the larger number of corporate agents and entities involved in the enterprise and the distant or dispersed operations of the business, is often hidden and far more difficult to detect. As a consequence, in this model the likelihood that the offender may escape full liability and thus derive immense profits from wrongdoing raises greater fundamental concerns. Moreover, by reason of the vastly expanded field of business operations, the injuries associated with extreme corporate misconduct more often affect not just one but multiple victims. Hence, the extent of the individual and public harms, both to the immediate victim and to those who as consumers or shareholders have an interest in the corporation’s activities, may be substantially larger. In addition, frequently the corporate wrongdoers tend to be nonresident entities whose origins may be difficult to trace and which are generally viewed by juries abstractly and less sympathetically than known, local defendants. Because of the enormous compass of business operations, the stated wealth, economic and political power and other resources potentially at the disposal of some corporate wrongdoers are reported in staggering magnitudes that vastly intensify perceptions of corporate misdeeds and .resultant injuries and dwarf the means available to most individual victims to prosecute them. Overall, these circumstances combine to produce a magnifying effect enlarging the calculus and economics associated with punitive damages. In this bigger picture, the disproportions defining the underlying relationships among parties and events are exponentially distorted. The skewing effects then manifest in the size of some punitive damages awards prominently reported. As a result, the stakes in the controversies grow bigger in a self-fulfilling spiral. The more extensive and complex the field of the wrongdoer’s opera: tions, the more far-reaching the impacts of egregious civil wrongs are likely to be when calculated in terms of the number of victims actually or potentially harmed, the enormity of the injuries inflicted and the scope of other interests adversely touched. From this causal template follow other patterns and consequences that come to bear on assessments of punitive awards: the greater the divide between actual or potential injuries and the cost of their prevention; the larger the wealth and power of the wrongdoers and the punitive damages required to affect their conduct in material ways; the mightier the resources necessary to induce and sustain the prosecution of egregious wrongdoings and those available to the victims; the higher the number of known injuries victims assert in lawsuits and those that go undetected and unprosecuted; the farther removed the wrongdoer is situated from the victim and the place where the offense is adjudicated — in sum, the more considerable the correspondences and disparities inherent in these relationships, the higher the resulting punitive awards the combined factors are likely to yield. 2. Functions and Distinctions of Remedial Damages In simplest terms, civil damages theory holds that compensatory and punitive damages are conceptually different and serve distinct purposes. See State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, — U.S.—, -, 123 S.Ct. 1513, 1519, 155 L.Ed.2d 585 (2003) (“[I]n our judicial system compensatory and punitive damages, although usually awarded at the same time by the same decision maker, serve different purposes.”) (citing Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 432, 121 S.Ct. 1678, 149 L.Ed.2d 674 (2001)). Compensatory awards function to redress the harms caused by the defendant’s wrongful conduct and thereby strive to make the victim whole, insofar as recompense for an injury may be achieved practically and fairly through monetary satisfaction. See id. (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 903, at 453-54 (1979)). The reparatory design of punitive damages encompasses broader purposes. The remedy aims to punish egregious malfeasance and deter the offender and potentially other persons from engaging in similar wrongful conduct. See id. (citing Cooper Indus., 532 U.S. at 432, 121 S.Ct. 1678); Gore, 517 U.S. at 568, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (“Punitive damages may properly be imposed to further a State’s legitimate interest in punishing unlawful conduct and deterring its repetition.”); Haslip, 499 U.S. at 19, 111 S.Ct, 1032; see also United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 448, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989) (noting that “a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can be explained only as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment....”). As punishment, punitive damages work-to impose on wrongdoers who inflict particularly acute, intentional or wanton harm a kind of “quasi-criminal” penalty in the form of “private fines”. Cooper Indus., 532 U.S. at 432, 121 S.Ct. 1678 (quoting Haslip, 499 U.S. at 54, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (O’Connor, J., dissenting)); International Broth. of Electrical Workers v. Foust, 442 U.S. 42, 48, 99 S.Ct. 2121, 60 L.Ed.2d 698 (1979) (characterizing punitive damages as “private fines levied by civil juries.”). The remedy benefits the victim and the general public by providing a measured and socially recognized outlet for retribution that goes beyond the mere restoration of the victim’s actual loss and that achieves greater deterrence than restitutional awards limited to compensation for the particular injuries the wrongdoer inflicted. By these means, the social system may attain certain structural ends. It endeavors to preserve an equitable balance of rights and duties among members. It discourages excessive self-help and private vengeance by legitimizing a method by which personal and public indignation and anger toward an offender may be vented and channeled in considered, proportionate ways. And it offers incentives for mediation of social relations and resolution of disputes by acceptable peaceful methods. Overall, a proper remedy fosters trust in the fairness of the legal system and confidence in the binding rules by which all members are obliged to abide. The deterrent purposes of punitive damages manifest in various ways. First, this aspect of the remedy serves an educational role. It publishes the social code defining parts of the community’s mores, specifically, the kinds of conduct deemed particularly blameworthy. It gives notice of the types of transgressions that evoke moral outrage and of the fitting gradations of recognized responses, thus alerting all members of a society of the proper balance of their rights-duties relationships — the values and expectations the social system prescribes—and informing the calculus and economics of private wrongdoing in derogation of recognized standards. To these ends, the punitive remedy: not only puts potential wrongdoers on notice of the types of private wrongs that the law defines as particularly reprehensible and harmful but underscores the gravity of the offenses through the sting of harsher remedies; signals that such enhanced penalties are imposed to remove the transgressor’s incentive and profitability from engaging in aggravated misconduct and to enlarge the hazards potential lawbreakers should reckon and assume in calculating the odds that the offenses would go undetected or that the victim would not prosecute the wrong; and highlights that the prospect of significantly larger recovery is likely to induce more injured parties to vindicate their rights, and indirectly-the rights of others, thereby off-setting any underenforcement by other victims, diminishing the chances that flagrant offenses will go unenforced and unpunished and, conversely, materially raising the odds that violators would be compelled to restore illicit gains. Upon deeper inquiry, however, the common formulations and distinctions drawn between the purposes served by punitive and compensatory damages occasionally fall short as decisional guides. Thus the Court’s task in ruling on issues pertaining to damages requires further analysis and calibration. For, despite the stock bromides generally pronouncing that the aim of compensatory damages is solely to restore the plaintiffs loss and not to punish the defendant, in fact this restitutional remedy does possess a deterrent and punitive aspect as well. This objective manifests especially in 'cases in which the wrongdoer is known and the injury is monetarily recompensed to the full extent of the proven damages, or where the compensatory component of a verdict takes account of damages for severe injuries that cause the victim acute distress, and arouse public anger and indignation—effects not readily quantifiable. See State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1525 (noting that an award of compensatory damages already contains a punitive element reflecting the distress caused by outrage and humiliation suffered by the victim and that punitive damages also operate to condemn such conduct) (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 908, cmt. c, at 466 (1977) (“In many cases in which compensatory damages include an amount for emotional distress, such as humiliation or indignation aroused by the defendant’s act, there is no clear line of demarcation between punishment and compensation and a verdict for a specified amount frequently includes elements of both.”)); see also Roginsky, 378 F.2d at 841 (“Many awards of compensatory damages doubtless contain something of a punitive element, and more would do so if a separate award for exemplary damages were eliminated.”). In these situations, a full compensatory award not only places upon the defendant the obligation to make the victim whole; it also superimposes substantial additional costs: the expenses and other burdens associated with defending the litigation; the risks of uncertainty attendant to the computation of assessed damages; the deleterious effects of bad publicity; and in some cases the prospect of paying the prevailing party’s attorneys fees. By the same token, not only do compensatory damages awards at times achieve punitive ends, the converse is also true. Though courts generally identify punishment and deterrence as the predominant goals of exemplary damages, as a practical matter the punitive award not only serves the additional purposes described above, but, under some circumstances, a number of the remedy’s other functions may overlap with the restitutional role of compensatory damages, and may indeed duplicate compensatory recovery. For instance, insofar as, for a variety of reasons, not all victims of a particular instance of extreme misconduct pursue their legal remedies, the offender may profit from underen-forcement, potentially engendering diminished deterrence and encouraging additional or sustained misbehavior by the same or other wrongdoers. At least theoretically, in incidents of wrongful acts that injure many victims, a large enough punitive recovery by one plaintiff may reflect derivative “compensation” for the harms inflicted upon other victims similarly injured but unwilling or unable to enforce their claims. In essence, the defendant is compelled to disgorge to one litigant portions of the wrongdoer’s unlawful gains attributable to harms that otherwise may go undetected or unprosecuted. Moreover, though in theory the aim of compensatory damages is to make the injured party “whole,” in reality not every actual injury the victim of private misconduct suffers is entirely compensable. Under applicable compensatory damages rules, some losses may not be recoverable at all; some may not provable; some may have lapsed; some, however felt, may be intangible and not capable of reasonable measure or practical quantification; and some, such as the full financial burdens and emotional toll associated with pursuing litigation, are assumed to be absorbed in the first instance by the victim. Under these circumstances, the recovery of punitive damages in excess of pure monetary compensation for actual injuries suffered, to some extent serves additionally to fill the “gaps,” to “recompense” the victim of egregious misconduct for the components of intangible, unquantifiable and exceptional losses that may be missed in the computation of recoverable compensatory damages. See State Farm, — U.S. at -, 12B S.Ct. at 1525; see generally Owen, Punitive Damages in Products Liability Litigation, supra, at 1295-98. But, as is often the case, to articulate a rule in theory is far easier than to confirm that in practice it works as modeled. Because the computation of damages is not a precise science and juries are not required to produce punctilious accountings of their awards, there is no satisfactory , way to establish that aspects of losses theoretically not recoverable as compensatory damages are nonetheless injected into the calculation of a full compensatory award and-embodied as well in accompanying punitive damages. Finally, the punitive remedy also serves a compensatory law enforcement function. It recognizes and rewards the unique risks the victims bear and the form of public service they render in enforcing the law against major offenders who otherwise might go unpunished and undeterred. This purpose results particularly in cases where recovery of compensatory damages may be too small or too costly to pursue in relation to the actual loss, or where the criminal law may not apply or public law enforcement resources may not stretch to prosecute particular wrongs. See Jackson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 781 F.2d 394, 403 (5th Cir.1986) (“[Pjunitive damages reward individuals who serve as ‘private attorneys general’ in bringing wrongdoers to account.”) In practice, this bounty function is recognized and given expression, as in the case at hand, by rules permitting juries to hear evidence of, and to take into account in assessing punitive damages, the extent of attorneys fees and other litigation costs plaintiffs are forced to incur in order to prosecute aggravated wrongdoings. See, e.g., Haslip, 499 U.S. at 22, 111 S.Ct. 1032; Softel, Inc. v. Dragon Med. and Scientific Comm. Ltd., 891 F.Supp. 935, 945-46 (S.D.N.Y.1995) (citing New York Law). 3. Enduring Concerns Over Punitive Damages The Supreme Court has recognized that, despite whatever virtues may justify the imposition of exemplary damages, and however long and respectably rooted its lineage may be, the remedy is far from perfect. See State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1520; Haslip, 499 U.S. at 18, 111 S.Ct. 1032; TXO, 509 U.S. at 473-75, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). The evolution of the doctrine has not corrected various deficiencies associated with civil penalties. Substantial rough spots and potential abuses unresolved by statutory or common law still attend the remedy. These concerns continue to engender recurring objections. Critiques of what is wrong about the remedy help in streamlining the contours of what is right and properly applying what remains. a. Lower Protective Standards Though acknowledged to embody a punishment purpose somewhat comparable to that served by criminal law, exemplary damages are subject to none of the heightened constitutional safeguards that attach to criminal procedures to assure that prosecution of crimes extends only to the match of proper offenses and proper offenders and that any penalties ultimately meted out not only reflect considered and proportionate relationship to the wrongs actually committed but also satisfy other basic indices of fairness. See State Farm, - U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1520 (“Although these awards serve the same purposes as criminal penalties, defendants subjected to punitive damages in civil cases have not been accorded the protections applicable in a criminal proceeding.”). Protections that accompany criminal sanctions and not attendant to quasi-criminal “fines” include: the more rigorous standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt; the size and role of the jury in determining guilt but not punishment; the unanimous verdict; proscriptions against self-incrimination, double jeopardy, cruel or unusual punishment and excessive fines; and the right to counsel. Moreover, offending criminal conduct in its varying degrees and corresponding penalties are statutorily defined, codified and published so as to reflect at any given time and place the recognized severity of unlawful conduct and the values that society, through publicly designated representatives, ascribes to particular forms of deviant behavior. To punish and deter criminal deeds, legally prescribed penalties—both maximum and minimum—are matters of public record. And the rules controlling the admissibility of evidence, the conduct of the trial and the judge’s instructions to the jury are more exacting and precise in circumscribing both what is admissible material for the trier of fact to consider in reaching a verdict and subsequently the range of permissible penalties the court may impose. Those standards are nationally uniform, applying equally in every state under the constitutional oversight and guidance provided by the Supreme Court. By contrast, the imposition of punitive damages is not governed by such rigorously defined, published or uniform rules, raising concerns voiced by the Supreme Court “over the imprecise manner in which punitive damages systems are administered” and that “ ‘[p]unitive damages pose an acute danger of arbitrary deprivation of property.’ ” Id., — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1520 (quoting Oberg, 512 U.S. at 432, 114 S.Ct. 2331 (1994)). Neither fixed floors nor caps to recovery of punitive damages exist in many jurisdictions, sometimes rendering awards too small to serve their intended punishment and deterrent ends, and sometimes much larger than may be appropriate for their purpose, thus offending basic notions of fairness and justice. See id. b. Minimal Jury Guidance A particular concern about punitive damages repeatedly voiced by the Supreme Court is that civil liability for outrageous wrongdoing warranting punishment beyond compensatory damages may be determined in accordance with sometimes vague standards of conduct defined in terms such as “wanton”, “reckless”, “conscious or deliberate indifference”. See, e.g., Oberg, 512 U.S. at 432, 114 S.Ct. 2331; Haslip, 499 U.S. at 12, 111 S.Ct. 1032; Gertz, 418 U.S. at 350, 94 S.Ct. 2997. Jury instructions may provide no more than skeletal guidance to constrain discretion and protect against unwarranted coercion and arbitrary deprivations of property. As the Supreme Court has noted: Jury instructions typically leave the jury with wide discretion in choosing amounts, and the presentation of evidence of a defendant’s net worth creates the potential that juries will use their verdicts to express biases against big businesses, particularly those without strong local presences. Oberg, 512 U.S. at 432, 114 S.Ct. 2331; see also State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1520; (“Vague instructions, or those that merely inform the jury to avoid ‘passion or prejudice,’ ... do little to aid the decision-maker in its task of assigning appropriate weight to evidence that is relevant and evidence that is tangential or only inflammatory.”); TXO, 509 U.S. at 474-75, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (noting that the risk of prejudice, bias and caprice is especially real in the area of punitive damages, “where juries sometimes receive only vague and amorphous guidance. Jurors may be told that punitive damages are imposed to punish and deter, but rarely are they instructed on how to effectuate those goals or whether any limiting principles exist.”); Haslip, 499 U.S. at 12, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (quoting Gertz, 418 U.S. at 350, 94 S.Ct. 2997); id. at 49, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (noting that “most common-law punitive damages instructions ... ha[ve] ‘an open-ended, anything-goes quality that can too easily stoke ... the vindictive or sympathetic passions of juries.’ ”) (quoting P. Huber, Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences 118 (1988)); Browning-Ferris Indus. of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Dis posal, Inc., 492 U.S. 257, 281, 109 S.Ct. 2909, 106 L.Ed.2d 219 (1989) (Brennan, J., concurring) (“[P]unitive damages are imposed by juries guided by little more than an admonition to do what they think is best.”). In consequence, under the less stringent common law tests that regulate the finding of civil liability and imposition of punishment for flagrant private wrongs, absent more concrete standards, courts generally accord juries substantial latitude to award punitive damages, limited only by what may be deemed the amount of penalty necessary to achieve the retributive and deterrent purposes of such damages. See Gore, 517 U.S. at 568, 116 S.Ct. 1589; see also Haslip, 499 U.S. at 16, 111 S.Ct. 1082. With juries guided by such expansive latitude and minimal instructions confining the exercise of their discretion, erratic or unpredictable punitive awards are bound to result. Defendants may be penalized with exemplary damages that may far exceed the amounts prescribed for comparable conduct in other civil cases in the same jurisdiction, or for similar criminal offenses. See, e.g., State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1526; see also Gore, 517 U.S. at 585, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (noting that the punitive sanction assessed by the jury, as affirmed by the State courts, was “tantamount to a severe criminal penalty”). c. Improper Considerations However clearly and firmly juries may be guided and admonished by the court under permissible standards, concerns persist that punitive damages animated by sympathy for the victim, passions stirred by the virulence of the offense, biases related to the defendant’s residence, personal or corporate status or wealth, or by other improper motives, could infect the verdict and manifest in excessive awards, the amounts of which may duplicate compensatory recovery, or may be grossly disproportionate to actual harm, or larger than necessary to serve the purposes of punitive sanctions. See State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1525 (In finding the punitive award at issue grossly excessive, the Supreme Court noted that portions of the substantial compensatory damages awarded “likely were based on a component which was duplicated in the punitive awards.”); Gore, 517 U.S. at 584-85, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (expressing concern over the use of the punitive deterrent to impose burdens on nonresident corporations for out-of-state conduct); TXO, 509 U.S. at 464, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (agreeing that “the emphasis on the wealth of the wrongdoer increased the risk that the award may have been influenced by prejudice against large corporations, a risk that is of special concern when the defendant is a nonresident.”). Offenders thus may be exposed to incrementally higher penalties, to exemplary judgments rendered to multiple plaintiffs in different courts and jurisdictions in litigation involving the same actions, and thus to punitive liabilities mounting to sums potentially ruinous to the defendants. See Roginsky, 378 F.2d at 839-40. d. Windfalls While one side of the excessive verdict coin portrays the undue burdens defendants may bear, the reverse side expresses concern over potential unjust enrichment of plaintiffs by windfalls that exemplary damages may bestow, particularly to litigants who may enjoy the good fortune of being first to file in court, see, e.g., Rogin-sky, 378 F.2d at 839-40, or of potentially recovering from a deep pocket or fully indemnified defendant, see, e.g., Haslip, 499 U.S. at 22, 111 S.Ct. 1032; City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 270-71, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981); see also Vasbinder v. Scott, 976 F.2d 118, 121 (2d Cir.1992); Aldrich v. Thomson McKinnon Secs., Inc., 756 F.2d 243, 249 (2d Cir.1985); see generally Note, An Economic Analysis of the Plaintiffs Windfall from Punitive Damage Litigation, 105 Harv. L.Rev.1900 (1992). Insofar as an award of punitive damages may duplicate aspects of compensatory recovery included in the same verdict, and exceed amounts reasonably calculated to achieve the recognized purposes of exemplary damages, the punitive remedy may confer benefits beyond what the victim may be reasonably entitled to recover. See, e.g., Gore, 517 U.S. at 593, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (Breyer, J., concurring) (“Larger damages might also ‘double count’ by including in the punitive damages award some of the compensatory, or punitive, damages that subsequent plaintiffs would also recover.”); Vasbinder, 976 F.2d at 121 (“[B]ecause neither compensation nor enrichment is valid purpose of punitive damages, an award should not be so large as to constitute ‘a windfall to the individual litigant.’ ”) (quoting Aldrich, 756 F.2d at 249). At bottom, excessive awards tend to inject a redistributive purpose into the apportionment of damages, a role uninformed and unguided by recognized rules and thus unbounded by reasonable constraints. e. Encouraging or Prolonging Unnecessary Litigation In some instances the prospect of massive punitive verdicts tends to convert boon and bounty into bonanza, to transform the legitimate private law enforcement incentive embodied in such awards into a ticket to the lottery. See, e.g., Oki America, Inc. v. Microtech Int’l, Inc., 872 F.2d 312, 315-316 (9th Cir.1989) (Kozinski, J., concurring); Note, supra, 105 Harv. L.Rev. at 1907-10. Visions of vast punitive winnings may seduce reality, and warp what the facts actually say about the true worth a claim. Such delusionary litigation encourages plaintiffs’ races to the courthouse to be first filers and may breed exuberance and obstinacy in pursuit of claims that otherwise might settle. See Oki America, 872 F.2d at 315 (Kozinski, J., concurring) (noting that “the allure of punitive damages ... entices into court parties who might otherwise be inclined to resolve their differences.”). This effect follows to the extent an undue punitive award essentially enriches plaintiffs who achieve a judgment embodying the equivalent of compensatory damages attributable to victims who do not sue in respect of the same unlawful conduct, or who succeed first in time at the expense of other prevailing parties whose later judgments could turn out uncollectible because the first filers may have effectively impoverished the defendant. See, e.g., Gore, 517 U.S. at 593, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (Breyer, J., concurring); Roginsky 378 F.2d at 839-40. Conversely, the possibility of visiting utter ruin upon a defendant by means of substantial penalties, however genuine or tenuous the asserted grounds, may induce other plaintiffs hardened by intense vindictiveness, to cling to their punitive hopes and engage in scorched-earth tactics in support of claims that litigants less driven by inflated vengeful impulses may be more inclined to resolve. f. Overdeterrence Punitive damages awards larger than necessary to achieve their intended purposes are also criticized for their potential to achieve counter-productive economic effects through overdeterrence, potentially dissuading activities commercially or socially beneficial on account of excessive caution induced among some corporate managers by fear of disproportionate punitive liability. See, e.g., Gore, 517 U.S. at 593, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (Breyer, J., concurring) (“[L]arger damages would ‘over-deter’ by leading potential defendants to spend more to prevent the activity that causes the economic harm ... than the cost of the harm itself.”); Browning-Ferris, 492 U.S. at 282, 109 S.Ct. 2909 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (“The threat of such enormous awards has a detrimental effect on the research and development of new products.”); see also Sunstein, Kahneman and Schkade, supra, at 2077 (“[A] risk of extremely high awards is likely to produce excessive caution in risk-averse managers and companies. Hence unpredictable rewards create both unfairness and ... inefficiency, in a way that may overdeter desirable activity.”) (citations omitted). g.Defendant’s Wealth The economics of punitive damages reflect other peculiarities of civil penalties not permissible in criminal punishment that serve further to underscore the anomalous distinctions between the two punitive regimens. Evidence of the defendant’s wealth, an issue very much in contention in the case at hand, is considered relevant and admissible to inform the jury in fixing the appropriate amount of a punitive award. See TXO, 509 U.S. at 462 n. 28, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (noting that under well-settled law evidence of the defendant’s net worth is typically admissible in assessing punitive damages) (citing Haslip 499 U.S. at 21-22, 111 S.Ct. 1032); see also Gore, 517 U.S. at 591, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (Breyer, J., concurring); Newport, 453 U.S. at 270, 101 S.Ct. 2748; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 908(2) (1979). The rule is presumably warranted on comparative equity and economic grounds on the theory that, in order to inflict a similar amount of punishment and effective deterrence it requires a higher extraction of money from a wealthy person than from a poor one. See, e.g., Browning-Ferris, 492 U.S. at 300, 109 S.Ct. 2909 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“ ‘The value of money itself changes from a thousand causes; and at all events, what is ruin to one man’s fortune, may be a matter of indifference to another’s.’ ”) (quoting 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries 371). But what may be justifiable for one purpose may yield pernicious consequences for another. Evidence of the extent of the defendant’s wealth may also be employed by juries as occasion to display their personal notions of munificence, to apply not the law but largesse. See TXO, 509 U.S. at 464, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (“[T]he emphasis on the wealth of the wrongdoer increased the risk that the award may have been influenced by prejudice against large corporations.... ”); Newport, 453 U.S. at .270-71, 101 S.Ct. 2748; see also Clarence Morris, Punitive Damages in Tort Cases, 44 Harv. L.Rev. 1173, 1191 (1931). (“It is a good guess that rich men do not fare well before juries, and the,, more emphasis placed on their riches, the less well they fare.”). h. Indemnification A related dimension of the defendant’s wealth arises in connection with other considerations, also in contention here: the availability and relevance of insurance covering punitive damages, and indemnification agreements and vicarious liability principles that effectively enable individual defendants found liable to transfer the impact of punitive damages to their employers, corporate shareholders or other third persons, thereby, as to such wrongdoers, blunting if not altogether shifting the intended punitive sting and deterrent purpose of the verdict. i. Limitations of Judicial Review Though safety valves exist to redress the inequities produced by improper punitive awards by means of post-verdict relief from the trial court or on appeal, some legal and practical constraints limit the scope of available relief in many situations. Courts are generally loathe to tamper with jury verdicts except in cases where the error is manifest or the misuse of the fact-finder’s authority is flagrant. Concerns over the division of labor between judge and jury, vigorous and necessary protection of the constitutional domain of the jury in our justice system, and principles of comity recognizing distinct but interrelated jurisdictional zones between .federal and state authorities in our dual system of government, serve as powerful impulses that impel judicial deference to jury verdicts rendered in compliance with fair procedures, even while, under the minimal guidance of general instructions, conferring broad discretion to the jury. See TXO, 509 U.S. at 457, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (“Assuming that fair procedures were followed, a judgment that is the product of that process is entitled to a strong presumption of validity.”); Haslip, 499 U.S. at 16, 19-20, 111 S.Ct. 1032; see also Cooper Indus., 532 U.S. at 437 n. 11, 121 S.Ct. 1678 (noting that the determination of the amount of punitive damages is a peculiar function of the jury and should be left to its discretion) (citing Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U.S. 550, 565, 6 S.Ct. 501, 29 L.Ed. 729 (1886) and Day v. Woodworth, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 363, 371, 14 L.Ed. 181 (1851)); Newport, 453 U.S. at 270, 101 S.Ct. 2748 (remarking on “the broad discretion traditionally accorded to juries in assessing the amount of punitive damages.”) (citing Foust, 442 U.S. at 50-51, 99 S.Ct. 2121; Gertz, 418 U.S. at 349-50, 94 S.Ct. 2997). These forces effectively restrain courts’ inclination to set aside jury verdicts imposing substantial punitive damages. j. Punitive Damages “Crisis” The foregoing considerations all come to bear upon the size of punitive damages awards. Whether or not justified by reality or empirically demonstrable, a perception persists that a recent “crisis” concerning punitive damages exists. See, e.g., Haslip, 499 U.S. at 18, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (“We note once again our concern about punitive damages that ‘run wild’ ”); id. at 61, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (noting that “[rjecent years ... have witnessed an explosion in the frequency and size of punitive awards.”) (citing M. Peterson, S. Sarma, & M. Shaley, Punitive Damages—Empirical Findings, in RAND Institute for Civil Justice (1987)); TXO, 509 U.S. at 500, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (noting that the frequency and size of punitive awards has been “skyrocketing” in recent years, and that “the upward trajectory continues unabated.”); Oki America, 872 F.2d at 315 (Kozinski, J., concurring); see also Sunstein, Kahneman and Schkade, supra, at 2075-76 (noting that “[t]he most widespread concern about punitive damages has been that they are unpredictable, even ‘out of control.’ ”) (citations omitted). Various aspects of this debate have reached the attention of the Supreme Court in several recent cases addressing the propriety of certain punitive damages awards that have “exposed the constitutional defects that inhere in the common-law system.” Haslip, 499 U.S. at 62, 111 S.Ct. 1032 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). B. PUNITIVE DAMAGES JURISPRUDENCE The Supreme Court’s most recent elaboration of principles governing punitive damages is articulated in State Farm, — U.S. at -, 123 S.Ct. at 1513, a case coincidentally decided after the liability phase of the trial of this action and just three weeks before the commencement of the damages phase. In fact, given State Farm’s, relevance to the issues before it, this Court, insofar as the recency of the ruling permitted it to do so, endeavored to articulate its concerns in the instructions given to the jury, there reflecting its own reading of State Farm’s guidance. State Farm and related antecedents of course bear significantly on this Court’s deliberations on Defendants’ motions challenging the punitive damages verdicts in the instant case. In those cases, the Supreme Court recognized that “unlimited discretion ... in the fixing of punitive damages may invite extreme results that jar one’s constitutional sensibilities.” Haslip, 499 U.S. at 18, 111 S.Ct. 1032. The action in Haslip involved several claims of fraud grounded on misappropriation by defendant’s agents of premiums paid by plaintiffs’ public employer for health insurance policies. Defendant’s denial of plaintiff Haslip’s health coverage caused her doctors to bill her directly for medical services rendered and later to refer her account to a collection agency. In an action against Haslip for nonpayment, the agency obtained a money judgment, thereby adversely affecting her credit. In plaintiffs’ action against the insurer, the Supreme Court upheld a jury award of damages to Haslip totaling $1,040,000. Of this sum, the punitive component amounted to approximately $840,000, roughly four times the compensatory damages and 200 times Haslip’s out-of-pocket expenses. See id. at 6, 23-24, 111 S.Ct. 1032. While noting that the recognition of punitive damages in American jurisprudence has been longstanding, the Supreme Court acknowledged that it would be “inappropriate to say that ... their imposition is never unconstitutional.” Id. at 18, 111 S.Ct. 1032. Nonetheless, reviewing Has-lip’s punitive recovery, the Court found no “constitutional impropriety” in the size of the award and its relationship to compensatory damages and actual expenses. Id. at 23, 111 S.Ct. 1032. In this connection, the Supreme Court observed that: “[W]e need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a mathematical bright line between the constitutionally acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that would fit every case.” Id. at 18, 111 S.Ct. 1032. Instead, the Court instructed that “general concerns of reasonableness and adequate guidance from the Court when the case is tried to a jury properly enter into the constitutional calculus.” Id. The Haslip Court then evaluated the sufficiency of the procedures and guidance that governed the trial and appellate review of the punitive damages award, and endorsed the standards that had been applied by the state courts in the case as sufficiently definite and meaningful to constrain trial courts and juries in awarding punitive damages. Among the criteria the state courts had considered in determining whether the award was excessive or inadequate were: (a) whether there is a reasonable relationship between the punitive damages award and the harm likely to result from the defendant’s conduct as well as the harm that actually has occurred; (b) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct, the duration of that conduct, the defendant’s awareness, any concealment, and the existence and frequency of similar past conduct; (c) the profitability to the defendant of the wrongful conduct and the desirability of removing that profit and of having the defendant also sustain a loss; (d) the “financial position” of the defendant; (e) all the costs of litigation; (f) the imposition of criminal'sanctions on the defendant for its conduct, these to be taken in mitigation; and (g) the existence of other civil awards against the defendant for the same conduct, these also to be taken in mitigation. Id. at 21-23, 111 S.Ct. 1032; see also TXO, 509 U.S. at 460, 462, 113 S.Ct. 2711 (In upholding, by plurality opinion, a jury’s punitive award of $10 million where the verdict for compensatory damages was only $19,000, the Court relied primarily on evidence of the magnitude of potential harm that defendant’s conduct would have caused, and of “the amount of money potentially at stake, the bad faith of [defendant], the fact that the scheme employed in this case was part of a larger pattern of fraud, trickery and deceit, and [defendant’s] wealth.... ”). In its first such holding, the Supreme Court, in Gore, 517 U.S. at 559, 116 S.Ct. 1589, did find a civil punitive damages award grossly excessive, in violation of constitutional due process. There, plaintiff sued BMW alleging that at the time he purchased his new automobile, BMW failed to disclose that the car actually had been repainted. The jury found BMW liable and returned a verdict assessing $4,000 in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages, upon a determination that BMW’s nondisclosure policy constituted “gross, oppressive or malicious fraud.” Id. at 565, 116 S.Ct. 1589 (citation omitted). BMW defended its nondisclosure practice with evidence that the policy had been in effect since 1983 and complied with applicable statutes in 25 states, on which experience BMW claimed it had long relied. On appeal, the Alabama Supreme Court found error in the method the jury employed in computing the amount of punitive damages, which took into account the number of BMW’s similar sales in other jurisdictions. Though the state court reduced the punitive verdict to $2 million, the Supreme Court found the award, even as remitted, grossly excessive. See 517 U.S. at 574, 116 S.Ct. 1589. One of the central considerations in the majority’s reasoning was the prerequisite of notice. On this point the Court stated: “Elementary notions of fairness enshrined in our constitutional jurisprudence dictate that a person receive fair notice not only of the conduct that will subject her to punishment, but also of the severity of the penalty that a State may impose.” Id. The Gore Court then enunciated and applied three “guideposts” by which the state courts were instructed to measure the adequacy of notice concerning the magnitude of the $2 million punitive sanction the state imposed on BMW for adhering to its nondisclosure policy: (1) the degree of reprehensibility of the nondisclosure; (2) the disparity between the harm or potential harm suffered by plaintiff and his punitive damages award; and (3) the difference between this remedy and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases. See id. at 574-75, 116 S.Ct. 1589. As a threshold in its application of these standards to the Gore facts, the Court asserted: “Perhaps the most important in-dicium of the reasonableness of a punitive damages award is the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct.” Id. at 575, 116 S.Ct. 1589. As part of its consideration of this standard, the Court observed that some wrongs are inherently more blameworthy than others, that the harm BMW had inflicted on plaintiff was purely economic, and that BMW had not evinced indifference or reckless disregard for the health and safety of others. See id. at 576, 116 S.Ct. 1589. Though conceding that in appropriate cases economic injury could warrant substantial penalty, especially when done “intentionally through affirmative acts of misconduct ... or when the target is financially vulnerable,” the Court cautioned that not all acts that cause economic harm should be converted into torts sufficiently reprehensible to justify significant punitive sanctions in addition to compensatory damages. Id. With regard to its second guidepost, the Gore court observed that the $2 million award upheld by the State, at 500 times larger than the value of the actual harm the jury determined, was “breathtaking,” id. at 583, 116 S.Ct. 1589, and that there was no evidence that plaintiff or any other subsequent BMW purchaser had experienced any additional harm on account of BMW’s nondisclosure policy. See id. at 582, 116 S.Ct. 1589. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court, reiterating the stance it articulated in Haslip, declined to promulgate any fixed standard to demarcate the point at which the ratio of punitive damages to compensable harm crosses into impermissible bounds. Rather, the Court reaffirmed its rejection of the categorical notion that the constitutional line is marked by any simple mathematical formula comparing compensatory damages to the punitive award. On this point, it noted that: [l]ow awards of compensatory damages may properly support a higher ratio than high compensatory awards, if, for example, a particularly egregious act has resulted in only a small amount of economic damages. A higher ratio may also be justified in cases in which the injury is hard to detect or the monetary value of noneconomic harm might have been difficult to determine. Id. at 582, 116 S.Ct. 1589. In State Farm, the Supreme Court again applied the Gore guideposts in finding that a punitive damages award of $145 million, in a wrongful death action where full compensatory damages amounted to $1 million, was constitutionally excessive in violation of the Due Process Clause. See — U.S. at -, 128 S.Ct. at 1521. The Supreme Court’s analysis reiterates the criteria promulgated in Gore to guide lower courts’ assessments of reprehensibil•ity, noting on this score that while the existence of any one factor may not suffice to sustain an award of punitive damages, “the absence of all of them renders any award suspect.” Id. at 1521, 123 S.Ct. 1513. Significantly, the Supreme Court further instructed that: It should be presumed a plaintiff has been made whole for his injuries by compensatory damages, so punitive damages should be awarded if the defendant’s culpability, after having paid compensatory damages, is so reprehensible as to warrant the imposition of further sanctions to achieve punishment or deterrence. Id. (citing Gore, 517 U.S. at 575, 116 S.Ct. 1589). The Court then observed, in applying the Gore indices to State Farm’s practices, that while State Farm’s conduct in handling plaintiffs claims “merits no praise,” and justified some penalty, a more modest award would have served the State’s legitimate interests in punishing and deterring culpable behavior. Critical to the Supreme Court’s considerations in finding error in the state court’s reprehensibility analysis was evidence that the case was