Ark. Code Ann. § 16-55-211

Bifurcated proceeding

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case In re Special Task Force (2014)

Most recently applied in 2025 Ark. App. 268 - Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc.; And Aaron Marvell Foster v. Frank McMillion, Allen Jones, Carlton Pettus, Hunter Bokker, Bengi Bokker, and Zack Billingsley (April 2025)

Acts 2003, No. 649, § 14.

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) In any case in which punitive damages are sought, any party may request a bifurcated proceeding at least ten (10) days prior to trial.

(2) If a bifurcated proceeding has been requested by either party, then: The finder of fact first shall determine whether compensatory damages are to be awarded; and

(3) After a compensatory damages award determination, the finder of fact then shall determine whether and in what amount punitive damages will be awarded.

(4) Evidence of the financial condition of the defendant and other evidence relevant only to punitive damages is not admissible with regard to any compensatory damages determination.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.