Punitive damages used to be available pretty much whenever a jury wanted to punish the defendant for the defendant's actions leading to the plaintiff's injury.

        That's no longer the case in Tennessee.

        Punitive damages are now available in Tennessee only under very narrow circumstances  A jury, or a judge trying the case without a jury, can only award punitive damages after first finding the defendant acted either intentionally, fraudulently, maliciously, or recklessly.  These are defined as follows:

            "Intentionally" means a case in which it was the defendant's conscious objective or desire to cause the plaintiff's injury;

            "Fraudulently," means a case in which the defendant intentionally misrepresented an existing, material fact or produces false impression in order to mislead another or to obtain undue advantage, and that the plaintiff is injured because of reasonable reliance on that misrepresentation;

            "Maliciously" requires the defendant to have been motivated by ill-will, hatred or personal spite;

            "Recklessly" requires that the defendant was aware of, but consciously disregarded, substantial and unjustifiable risk of such nature that its disregard constitutes gross deviation from standard of care that ordinary person would exercise under all circumstances.
 

        To win a civil case at trial the plaintiff must merely establish his or her case by a "preponderance" of the evidence, in other words to simply persuade a jury that what the plaintiff says happened more likely than not did happen.  But in order to collect punitive damages, the plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted either intentionally, fraudulently, maliciously, or recklessly.   Hodges v. S.C. Toof & Co., 833 S.W.2d 896, (Tenn. 1992).

         Because the "clear and convincing" standard is much more difficult to prove, and because the plaintiff must now prove the defendant's actions were intentional, fraudulent, malicious or reckless, punitive damages are now very difficult to win in Tennessee.

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