SAN FRANCISCO — A consumer effort to equate late fees and over-limit payments on credit cards with punitive damages has failed—but not without winning the full-throated sympathy of Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt.
A three-judge panel turned down plaintiff claims in Pinon v. Bank of America, with Reinhardt adding a concurrence that jeered the U.S. Supreme Court for recently “discovering” constitutional limits on punitive damage awards that save corporations billions of dollars over wrongful conduct.
