AZ Auto Accidents: No Damage Caps & Punitive Damages Are Possible

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

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UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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Mary Martin

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Mary Martin has been a legal writer and editor for over 20 years, responsible for ensuring that content is straightforward, correct, and helpful for the consumer. In addition, she worked on writing monthly newsletter columns for media, lawyers, and consumers. Ms. Martin also has experience with internal staff and HR operations. Mary was employed for almost 30 years by the nationwide legal publi...

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UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

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It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Oct 21, 2024Fact Checked

Many states limit the amount of damages you can receive for the injuries you sustain in an auto accident. However, Arizona is notone of those states. There are no caps on damages and receiving punitive damages is also possible.

 

No limitations on damages

Unlike its neighboring states of Texas and California, Arizona doesn’t place a limitation on damages when you’re involved in an auto accident. We asked Dave Wattel, an Arizona attorney who has been handling plaintiffs’ cases exclusively for over 20 years, to explain:

There are no caps on damages and thank goodness we have a constitutional right to pursue personal injury claims here in Arizona. It’s not so in other states. In fact, I read a book not long ago called 90 Minutes in Heavenby Don Piper. Don was severely injured and he lived in Texas at the time. The state of Texas had some responsibility and the cap on payment was $250,000 – which didn’t come close to covering his medical expenses.

I had a client just this year who had a claim against the state of Arizona for a significant injury and we were able to obtain a payment of $2 million. Had this accident occurred in the state of Texas, $1.75 million would never have been collected for this client who was well deserving of the money.

Punitive damages are possible

Wattel told us that punitive damages are absolutely possible and are not necessarily rare in auto accident cases because there are still have a lot of people out there that choose to act dumb by driving while impaired, whether from alcohol or drugs – and that those claims are pursued by his firm. However, he did provide this caution:

There are some cases that have come through the Arizona court system and through the United States Supreme Court that potentially limit the amount of punitive damages in terms of its ratio to compensatory or special damages such as medical expenses, lost wages and things of that nature. If somebody’s compensatory claim is worth $50,000, you may be hard pressed to collect more than $50,000 or $100,000 in punitive damages. With the advent of these recent court decisions, punitive damages need to have a smaller ratio to compensatory damages than we’ve historically seen.

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Jeffrey Johnson

Insurance Lawyer

Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Mary Martin

Published Legal Expert

Mary Martin has been a legal writer and editor for over 20 years, responsible for ensuring that content is straightforward, correct, and helpful for the consumer. In addition, she worked on writing monthly newsletter columns for media, lawyers, and consumers. Ms. Martin also has experience with internal staff and HR operations. Mary was employed for almost 30 years by the nationwide legal publi...

Published Legal Expert

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

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