The judge in a landmark wrongful-death case against the maker of Taser stun guns has thrown out a jury award of $5 million in punitive damages, finding the parents of a California man were only entitled to $1 million in compensatory damages.

A San Jose, Calif., jury jolted Taser International (Nasdaq: TASR) in June by awarding a total of $6 million to the parents of Robert C. Heston, who died after police repeatedly shocked him with Tasers. More than 60 wrongful death or personal injury lawsuits involving Taser shocks have been filed in the U.S. but the Heston case was the first in which a jury has found Taser liable.

U.S. District Judge James Ware last week upheld the key verdict of negligence against Taser for failing to warn customers of the risks of delivering repeated shocks with an M26 stun gun, but granted the company's motion for judgment as a matter of law on the punitives award.

“[T]he Verdict form improperly contained a place for the jury to give an award of punitive damages,” he explained. California law does not allow recovery of punitives in a wrongful-death action.

The jury found Heston 85 percent liable for his death, offsetting the award of $1 million in compensatory damages to Heston's parents and $21,000 to his estate. So Ware's decision leaves a net recovery of only $153,150 (see table below).

Heston, 40, died a day after being arrested by four police officers at his parents' home in Salinas, Calif. An autopsy showed dangerously high levels of methamphetamine in his blood and Taser attributed his death to “excited delirium as a result of his chronic substance abuse, heavy use of methamphetamine, and an enlarged heart caused by his long-term drug abuse.”

But “excited delirium” is not recognized as a diagnosis in official medical manuals and the jury accepted the plaintiffs' theory that the repeated shocks from the Taser caused Heston to have a heart attack.

“The Court finds that there was substantial evidence upon which a reasonable jury could find that under certain conditions, prolonged exposure to electronic control devices posed risks to human health,” Ware said in affirming Taser's liability. “There was substantial evidence upon which a reasonable jury could find, as this jury did find, that a reasonable manufacturer would have warned of those risks.”

Ware reversed the award of $200,000 in punitives on the Heston estate's product liability claim because the jury did not find Taser consciously disregarded the probability that its product would harm others.