A Massachusetts judge has declined to reduce the $91 million damages award she approved last September for a construction worker’s personal injury claim, an award she herself characterized as “grossly excessive” but found is required by statute and precedent. In the meantime, in September 2021, Liberty offered Rooney the policy limits of $19.5 million, which Rooney rejected. In her ruling, she expressed her subjective view that the finding of willfulness resulted in a “grossly excessive punitive damages award against Liberty far in excess of the goals the statute is designed to achieve.” The judge also addressed Liberty’s complaint about the “disparity between actual or harm suffered by the plaintiff and the punitive damages award.” Because the statute circumscribes punitive damages to two or three times actual damages, the ratio between compensatory and punitive damages is not excessive, the judge found.