Case ID: so2d_409/html/1060-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      SHARP, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HEINTZELMAN’S TRUCK CENTER, INC., and Ken Kaatz, Appellants, v. D. Leroy GIBSON, Appellee.
    No. 80-86.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
    Oct. 21, 1981.
    Rehearing Denied Feb. 22, 1982.
    R. L. Russell, of Van Den Berg, Gay & Burke, P.A., Orlando, for appellants.
    Daniel J. Roberson, of Roberson & Roberson, Deland, for appellee.
   SHARP, Judge.

Heintzelman’s Truck Center, Inc. (Heint-zelman’s) and Kaatz appeal from a final judgment awarding damages to appellee, Gibson. Gibson sued appellants for the conversion of a truck he purchased from Heint-zelman’s. The trial judge directed a verdict in favor of Gibson on the issue of liability and awarded Gibson compensatory damages against Heintzelman’s and Kaatz (jointly and severally) of nineteen thousand one hundred eighty-one dollars fifty cents ($19,-181.50). The jury awarded Gibson nineteen thousand dollars ($19,000) in punitive damages against Heintzelman’s.

After a careful review of the record we find no reversible error occurred with regard to the compensatory damage award. Accordingly, it is affirmed. However, the punitive damage award against Heintzel-man’s is not sustainable under the dictates of Mercury Motors Express, Inc. v. Smith, 393 So.2d 545 (Fla. 1981). It is therefore reversed.

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART.

ORFINGER and FRANK D. UP-CHURCH, Jr., JJ., concur.