Should I be worried that a punitive damages award could be wildly in excess of any compensatory damage judgment?

Over the last decade, the U. S. Supreme Court has been putting the brakes on excessive punitive damages awards, seemingly limiting such award to a single-digit multiple of any compensatory damage award. It appears that a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio is in the proper range for cases with a sizable compensatory damage award. Despite the Highest Court’s previous warning to lower courts to limit punitive damages, however, in Williams v. Philip Morris, Inc., Oregon’s Supreme Court permitted a punitive damages award nearly 100 times greater than the compensatory damages judgment. The Oregon Court found an exception for huge awards where the conduct is analogous to a crime and is particularly reprehensible. The U. S. Supreme Court has taken that case up for review, and its decision will either re-iterate the direction it wants these cases to be going, i.e. limitations on punitive damages, or will create an exception that may swallow the rule.