Opinion ID: 484963
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Control's Claim Against Lar

Text: 29 The district court held that Lar owed Control $132,747.22 plus interest under the contract between the parties, and Lar, subject to the previously discussed counterclaim, does not dispute its liability on appeal. However, finding that Lar's refusal to pay was so willful, wanton, and reckless as to amount to an independent tort, the district court assessed punitive damages against Lar in the amount of $25,000. 30 This award of punitive damages cannot stand. While Mississippi law does allow punitive damages in cases of breach of contract where such breach is attended by intentional wrong, insult, abuse, or such gross negligence as amounts to an independent tort, Tideway Oil Programs, Inc. v. Serio, 431 So.2d 454, 465-66 (Miss.1983), it also recognizes that punitive damages are appropriate only in extreme cases, as a windfall ... deemed necessarily granted to the plaintiff as his reward for public service in bringing the wrongdoer to account. Id. at 460. We can find no Mississippi caselaw, and the parties have cited us to none, where punitive damages have been awarded in a breach of contract case without some special additional circumstances, such as fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, or grossly unequal bargaining power between the parties warranting close supervision by the courts (e.g., suits by an insured against his insurer). 31 None of these situations is presented here. This case is a not unusual breach of contract case with none of the public policy overtones that typically sound from Mississippi punitive damage cases. We are loathe to permit an expansion of Mississippi law beyond those situations clearly sanctioned by state courts. See Gardner v. Jones, 464 So.2d 1144, 1148-50 (Miss.1985) (disallowing punitive damages in case involving fraud and breach of lease). That portion of the district court's opinion imposing punitive damages upon Lar is therefore REVERSED.