Seven years after deadly violence erupted during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a federal appeals court has reinstated more than $2m in punitive damages for white nationalist leaders and organizations implicated in physical or emotional injuries suffered by people at the event.
The decision brought the total that a jury ordered to be paid to more than $26m. Most of that money, $24m, was for punitive damages, but a judge later slashed that amount to $350,000 – to be shared by eight plaintiffs.
On Monday, the Richmond-based fourth US circuit court of appeals restored more than $2m in punitive damages, finding that each of the plaintiffs should receive $350,000, instead of the $43,750 each would have received under the lower court’s ruling.
A three-judge panel at the fourth circuit affirmed the jury’s award of $2m in compensatory damages – but it found that a state law that imposes the $350,000 cap on punitive damages should be applied per person instead of for all eight plaintiffs, as a lower court judge had ruled.
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