During the past 25 years, marketers have been exposed to punitive damages claims in those cases where marketing behavior was deemed egregious. In this article, the primary purposes of punitive damages are identified, as are the various parties engaged in this arena. While each punitive damages claim is distinct, an aggregate view of the cumulative effects and the processes that produce them is possible. Over time, these effects and processes are expected to produce a change in the marketing environment, changes which vary in terms of both their economic and social consequences. While the evolution of the legal and marketing systems will occur in tandem, the isolation and measurement of these effects is difficult because of the various levels of aggregation, the number of parties, and the spatial and temporal separation of causes and effects.
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