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Punitive damages

Punitive damages are damages awarded to a successful plaintiff in a civil action, over and above the amount of compensatory damages, to:

punish the conduct of the civil defendant;
deter the civil defendant from committing the invidious act again; and
deter others from doing the same thing.

Generally, punitive damages are only awarded for egregiously invidious and wilful actions, not for mere carelessness or negligence.

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Punitive damages".