Rankings by Key Elements
Table 12: Punitive Damages**
| STATE | ELEMENT RANKING | STATE | ELEMENT RANKING |
| Delaware | 1 | Idaho | 23 |
| Minnesota | 2 | Nevada | 24 |
| Tennessee | 3 | North Dakota | 25 |
| Maine | 4 | Oregon | 26 |
| Utah | 5 | Pennsylvania | 27 |
| Iowa | 6 | Georgia | 28 |
| Indiana | 7 | Florida | 29 |
| Michigan | 8 | Rhode Island | 30 |
| Wisconsin | 9 | South Carolina | 31 |
| Wyoming | 10 | New Mexico | 32 |
| Kansas | 11 | Missouri | 33 |
| Arizona | 12 | Arkansas | 34 |
| North Carolina | 13 | Montana | 35 |
| New York | 14 | Oklahoma | 36 |
| South Dakota | 15 | Hawaii | 37 |
| Virginia | 16 | Texas | 38 |
| Ohio | 17 | Alaska | 39 |
| Kentucky | 18 | Illinois | 40 |
| Connecticut | 19 | Alabama | 41 |
| Vermont | 20 | California | 42 |
| Colorado | 21 | Mississippi | 43 |
| Maryland | 22 | West Virginia | 44 |
* Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Washington are not included because they do not allow punitive damages in general (source: U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform).
** This year the scores for the six states that have no punitive damages (Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Washington) were calculated in two different ways. One way (used in our main tables and in all previous years) is to base the score on all the other criteria excluding punitive damages. The second way involved assigning to each of these six states the highest score achieved from other states on punitive damages (i.e., Delaware's). While this improves their overall raw score, it does not make a difference in their overall ranking.