Opinion ID: 2773208
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence Regarding Wealth of the Defendants

Text: At the close of trial, the District Court instructed the jury on the relevant factors they could consider in fashioning a punitive damages award under § 908(2) of the Second Restatement of Torts, which Pennsylvania has adopted. In particular, the Court instructed the jurors that they could consider “[t]he wealth of the Defendant or Defendants insofar as it is relevant in fixing an amount that will punish him or her, and deter him or her and others from like conduct in the future.” App. 63. However, no evidence of the Defendants’ wealth had been introduced to the jury during the trial in any form, either testimonial or documentary. Defendants argue that the punitive damage award cannot stand because the jury was not presented with any 19 evidence regarding the wealth of any Defendant and therefore could not evaluate what amount of punitive damages would serve as an appropriate deterrent. The wealth of a defendant is indeed one of the three factors that “can properly [be] consider[ed]” by the trier of fact in assessing an award of punitive damages under § 908(2). Nonetheless, that section’s use of the permissive “can,” rather than the compulsory “must,” suggests that evidence of a defendant’s wealth is not a necessary prerequisite to an award of punitive damages. The weight of Pennsylvania case law agrees that “evidence of a tortfeasor’s wealth is not a necessary condition precedent for imposition of an award of punitive damages.” Vance v. 46 and 2, Inc., 920 A.2d 202, 207 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2007) (collecting cases). Despite § 908(2)’s permissive language, the Defendants urge that evidence of wealth is a necessary prerequisite to an award of punitive damages. The Defendants point to case law which they claim suggests that the fact finder is required to weigh a defendant’s wealth to properly calibrate an assessment of punitive damages. In Kirkbride v. Lisbon Contractors, Inc., 555 A.2d 800 (Pa. 1989), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a defendant’s claim that a punitive damages award must be proportional to an award of compensatory damages, noting that such a requirement would undermine the deterrent purpose of such awards: If the purpose of punitive damages is to punish a tortfeasor for outrageous conduct and to deter him or others from similar conduct, then a requirement of proportionality defeats that 20 purpose. It is for this reason that the wealth of the tortfeasor is relevant. In making its determination, the jury has the function of weighing the conduct of the tortfeasor against the amount of damages which would deter such future conduct. In performing this duty, the jury must weigh the intended harm against the tortfeasor’s wealth. If we were to adopt the Appellee’s theory [of proportionality to compensatory damages], outrageous conduct, which only by luck results in nominal damages, would not be deterred and the sole purpose of a punitive damage award would be frustrated. Id. at 803 (emphasis added).3 3 Kirkbride’s holding that a punitive damage award does not need to be proportional to the compensatory damages assessed in a given case has been subsequently called into question by a string of Supreme Court cases holding that, as a matter of due process, “courts must ensure that the measure of punishment is both reasonable and proportionate to the amount of harm to the plaintiff and to the general damages recovered.” State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 426 (2003). The Defendants do 21 Although the reasoning of the Kirkbride decision evinced a concern with ensuring that a punitive damages award must be sufficiently large to deter future wanton conduct by a wealthy defendant, a decision from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has interpreted Kirkbride’s language as a limitation on a court’s ability to impose punitive damages absent any evidence of the defendant’s wealth. In Rubin Quinn Moss Heaney & Patterson, P.C. v. Kennel, 832 F. Supp. 922, 936 (E.D. Pa. 1993), the District Court noted as a consideration in its decision declining to impose punitive damages that “the record is devoid of evidence concerning [the defendant’s] wealth.” Citing Kirkbride, the District Court concluded that it was “required to assess the impact the [punitive] damages would have on the Defendant's financial position,” which it could not do given the state of the record. Id. The weight of the Pennsylvania appellate case law, however, interprets Kirkbride differently and concludes that evidence of wealth is not required to assess punitive damages under Pennsylvania law. In Vance, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania rebuffed a claim that Kirkbride “requires that the jury be presented with evidence of a tortfeasor’s wealth before they can impose punitive damages.” 920 A.2d at 206. not press a constitutional due process claim regarding punitive damages as a part of this appeal, so we will “decline to resolve the thorny issue presented by the apparent conflict” between Kirkbride and the Supreme Court’s subsequent pronouncements on proportionality in punitive damage awards. Tunis Bros. Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 952 F.2d 715, 741 (3d Cir. 1991). 22 The Superior Court noted that Kirkbride was concerned with the distinct question of whether “an award of punitive damages had to be proportional to, or bear a reasonable relationship to, an award of compensatory damages.” Id. Although the Vance court acknowledged that “wealth of the tortfeasor is a relevant consideration in effectuating the purpose of punitive damages,” it concluded that “Kirkbride does not stand for the proposition that a jury cannot impose punitive damages without evidence of record pertaining to the defendant tortfeasor’s wealth.” Id. The Superior Court later reaffirmed this holding in Reading Radio, Inc. v. Fink, 833 A.2d 199, 215 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003), which held that “the polestar for the jury’s assessment of punitive damages is the outrageous conduct of the defendants, not evidence of a defendant’s wealth.” Similarly, in Shiner v. Moriarty, 706 A.2d 1228, 1242 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1998), the Superior Court “reject[ed] the suggestion that evidence of net worth is mandatory” to impose punitive damages. In light of the aforementioned decisions and the permissive, rather than compulsory language of § 908(2), we agree with the District Court that Pennsylvania law does not require evidence of a defendant’s wealth before punitive damages may be imposed. For whatever reason, parties may make the strategic decision to not introduce such evidence at trial, and that decision is not a basis for vacatur of a punitive damages award on appeal.