Opinion ID: 1846468
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: The reprehensibility of National's conduct.

Text: Under a Hammond/Green Oil review, we assess the reprehensibility of a defendant's conduct by considering `[t]he duration of this conduct, the degree of the defendant's awareness of any hazard which his conduct has caused or is likely to cause, and any concealment or cover-up of that hazard, and the existence and frequency of similar past conduct.' Green Oil, 539 So.2d at 223, quoting Lavoie, 505 So.2d at 1062. We note that we thoroughly addressed these considerations under the BMW guidepost of reprehensibility; we concluded that National's conduct was reprehensible in numerous ways relevant to this first Hammond/Green Oil factor: the misconduct consisted not of a single incident but of several incidents over a lengthy period; National was aware that its conduct was likely to harm Sockwell; National attempted to coerce Sockwell into dismissing her bad-faith claims by offering her the policy benefits to which she was already entitled; and National submitted a false affidavit to the trial court regarding its evaluation of Sockwell's claim in an apparent attempt to conceal its misconduct. We find National's actions in this case, as a whole, to be particularly reprehensible and to support a significant award of punitive damages.