Compensating plaintiffs and punishing defendants: Is bifurcation necessary?

Critics of the civil jury have proposed several procedural reforms to addre ss the concern that damage awards are capricious and unpredictable. One suc h reform is the bifurcation or separation of various phases of a trial that involves multiple claims for damages. The purpose of this study was to ass ess the effects of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damages phases of a civil fort trial, We manipulated the wealth of the defendant and the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct (both sets of evidence theoreti cally related to punitive but not to compensatory damages) across three cas es in a jury analog study. We wondered whether jurors would misuse the puni tive damages evidence in fixing compensatory damages and whether bifurcatio n would effectively undo this practice. Our findings indicated that mock ju rors did not improperly consider punitive damages evidence in their decisio ns about compensation. Moreover, bifurcation had the unexpected effect of a ugmenting punitive damage awards. These findings raise questions about the merits of bifurcation in cases that involve multiple claims for damages.