Opinion ID: 494607
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Punitive Damages Aspects

Text: 37 One final issue remains for our consideration. Defendant contends that permiting awards for loss of enjoyment of life to be assessed against the United States in an action under the FTCA is prohibited by the ban on the award of punitive damages against the United States stated in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2674 (1982). Flannery v. United States, 718 F.2d 108 (4th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1226, 104 S.Ct. 2679, 81 L.Ed.2d 874 (1984), a case remarkably similar to that at bar, found punitive an award of damages for loss of enjoyment of life to a semi-comatose claimant. 9 The Fourth Circuit started with the proposition that the characterization of damages as compensatory or punitive--within the meaning of the FTCA--is one of federal law, inasmuch as the question is related to the federal government's waiver of sovereign immunity. Further, the characterization should be based on a uniform standard, rather than on the various laws of the fifty states. 718 F.2d at 110. The Fourth Circuit held that [t]o the extent that an award gives more than the actual loss suffered by the claimant, it is 'punitive' whether or not it carries with it the deterrent and punishing attributes typically associated with the word 'punitive.'  Id. at 111. Since Flannery was utterly incapable of appreciating his loss, the Court found the award would provide Flannery with no direct benefit, and if compensatory at all, it would be so only to Flannery's surviving relatives. Id. 38 We disagree with, and therefore decline to follow, Flannery. We agree with the Sixth Circuit that the FTCA's prohibition of punitive damages was designed to prohibit use of a retributive theory of punishment against the government. Kalavity v. United States, 584 F.2d 809, 811 (6th Cir.1978). Even more directly on point, we agree with the Ninth Circuit's explicit refusal to follow Flannery, on the ground that the Flannery rule would  'impinge seriously upon the architecture of the Act which provides for recovery according to the lex loci delictus.'  Shaw v. United States, 741 F.2d 1202, 1208-09 (9th Cir.1984) (quoting Felder v. United States, 543 F.2d 657, 675 (9th Cir.1976)). 39 The purpose of a recovery for loss of enjoyment of life is clearly to compensate for that loss. The fact that the compensation may inure as a practical matter to third parties in a given case does not transform the nature of the damages. Indeed, such a rule, carried to its logical conclusion, would render all damages recovered by a decedent's estate punitive in nature.