treble damages

A statute that allows a court to triple ("treble") the amount of damages that a defendant must pay to a plaintiff. This large increase in compensatory damages occurs when a defendant willfully and knowingly did something illegal. For example, a company that willfully infringed upon another company's patent by producing a product that it did not have the rights to produce could be sued by the patent holder, and the court could award the defendant treble damages if the defendant was well aware that the product infringed on the patent.