Kansas City v. Keene Corp.

I fully concur in the majority opinion. However, I believe some additional observations are appropriate.

On occasion a punitive damages count is added to an ordinary action in contract or tort where there is no justification other than that a defendant is perceived to have a “deep pocket.” In such cases, the only conduct which may be characterized as evil *377is that the defendant is in business for profit and does not cease all operations when confronted with an inconclusive epidemiological study involving its product. In this case, had the defendant been an individual who had donated the…