Opinion ID: 156355
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instructions Regarding Punitive Damages

Text: 34 Conoco alleges that the court's punitive damages instructions were deficient because they failed to accurately inform the jury that it must award actual damages for tort before awarding punitive damages. Instruction No. 39, to which Conoco objects, was given to the jury in the first stage of trial and provided that the jury could award punitive damages in a later stage of trial only [i]f you find in Okland's favor on either of its claims of deceit and/or on its claim of fraud in the inducement and award Okland actual damages. Appellant's App. Vol. I at 177. On appeal, Conoco attacks this first stage instruction by arguing that the court should have given an instruction Conoco requested in the second stage of trial, which would have accurately told the jury that it must award tort damages before awarding punitive damages. We do not find in the record nor does Conoco tell us that it objected to the first or second stage punitive damages instructions on the ground that the language it requested in its proposed instruction was absent. In fact, only in Okland's Supplemental Appendix do we find Conoco's proposed first stage instruction as to punitive damages. See Appellee's Supplemental App. at 8. That proposed instruction, which states that the jury can only award punitive damages later [i]f you find in favor of plaintiff, and grant it actual damages, id., propagates the same error Conoco now alleges the court's instruction contained. Having failed to adequately raise this issue below, we review it for plain error. 35 We initially question whether, in any event, Conoco's proposed second stage instruction would have been enough to cure the error Conoco is alleging. The instruction was to be given only after the jury had already completed the first stage of trial, where the jury either did or did not award actual damages for tort. 36 Moreover, Conoco's proposed second stage instruction did not accurately state the law. The proposed instruction provided as follows: 37 Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you have found in favor of the plaintiff and granted him/her actual damages for fraud, and you have also found by a separate verdict that the defendant was guilty of reckless disregard of the rights of others. 38 You may now, in addition to actual damages, grant the plaintiff punitive damages in such sum as you reasonably believe will punish defendant and be an example to others. 39 .... 40 In no event should the punitive damages exceed the greater of: $100,000 or the amount of actual damages you have previously awarded. 41 Proposed Instruction No. 30, Appellant's App. Vol. I at 15-16. Unfortunately for Conoco, the jury in the first stage of trial found not only that Conoco had acted recklessly, but also that it had acted intentionally and with malice. Appellant's App. Vol. I at 185. Giving Conoco's proposed instruction on recklessness would have been error because Conoco's conduct fit into the intentional and malicious category of Oklahoma's punitive damages statute, not the recklessness category. See Okla. Stat. tit. 23, § 9.1(B), (C). Conoco does not tell us here whether it requested an instruction within the correct category, and not finding one in the Appellant's Appendix, we assume it did not. The court therefore properly refused to give Conoco's tendered instruction. 42 In addition, looking at the instructions as a whole, we find that they properly informed the jury of its responsibility to find tort damages prior to awarding punitive damages. Each of the instructions on the three tort theories clearly advised the jury that to find Conoco liable on those claims, it must find as one element that Okland had suffered damages as a result of Conoco's actions. 10 Appellant's App. Vol. I at 160, 162, 166. We are to presume that the jury followed those instructions, Mason v. Oklahoma Turnpike Auth., 115 F.3d 1442, 1456 (10th Cir.1997); United States v. Cooley, 1 F.3d 985, 997 (10th Cir.1993), and found damages. 43 Taken as a whole, the instructions, including the second stage instruction and the verdict form, which contained the same type of language as the first stage instruction, see Appellant's App. Vol. I at 182, 184-85, properly informed the jury that it must award actual damages on at least one tort theory before awarding punitive damages.