Opinion ID: 492759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence to award punitive damages

Text: 12 The second question is whether there was sufficient evidence to support an award of punitive damages in this case. The district court instructed the jury in the following manner on the reasons to award punitive damages: 13 In addition to actual damages such as I have tried to explain to you, the law permits the jury, under certain circumstances, to award an injured [party] punitive or exemplary damages, in order to punish the wrongdoer for some extraordinary misconduct, and to serve as an example or warning to others not to engage in such conduct. 14 This instruction is an incorrect statement of Georgia law. As applicable to this case, punitive damages can only be awarded to deter the trespasser from repeating the trespass. 15 In the court below, National Gypsum failed to object to the jury instruction. On appeal, National Gypsum did not discuss the problem. Only after the Georgia Supreme Court refused to answer the certified question because of the inaccuracy of the jury instruction did National Gypsum ask this court to vacate the punitive damages award and remand with instructions for a new trial. We do not find the jury instruction was plain error, and we refuse to reverse and remand on this issue. See Andres v. Roswell-Windsor Village Apartments, 777 F.2d 670 (11th Cir.1985) (Eleventh Circuit refused to reverse on alleged error in jury charge not objected to at trial). 16 City of Massachusetts v. Kibbe, 480 U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 1114, 94 L.Ed.2d 293 (1987), discusses this issue. In Kibbe, the Supreme Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted because the city had failed to preserve for review the negligence issue. The attorney had not objected to the gross negligence instruction, had proposed an instruction to the same effect, and had not raised the question before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. See Rule 51 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ([n]o party may assign as error the giving ... [of] an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider the verdict.). We also refuse to reverse an incorrect jury instruction on punitive damages never objected to at trial or challenged on appeal. 17 Accordingly, we address the issue National Gypsum did raise: whether there was sufficient evidence to support an award of punitive damages under Georgia law? For the jury properly to award punitive damages, Wammock had to present evidence of National Gypsum's willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness or oppression, or that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of a conscious indifference to consequences. 9 18 At trial, Wammock presented evidence that National Gypsum was aware of hazards of asbestos exposure in other contexts, such as the hazards faced by miners, plant workers and others who were exposed to higher concentrations of asbestos fiber than were workers in Wammock's position. National Gypsum contends that there is no evidence that National Gypsum extrapolated from known risks of high level exposure and drew any conclusion whatsoever about risks of lower level exposures to users of joint compound. 19 Wammock also presented the testimony of Dr. Gerritt Schepers, the former director of the Saranac Laboratory and Albert Fay, a former National Gypsum officer. Dr. Schepers testified that he wrote a letter to National Gypsum before 1964, criticizing the company for continuing to sell asbestos wallboard without warnings. Albert Fay testified that National Gypsum had failed to label its products until ordered to do so in 1972 by the government. After 1972, National Gypsum did not immediately label its products because customer demand for its products was too great to permit the delay that would result from labeling. We do not find it implausible for the jury to consider National Gypsum's actions as demonstrating an entire want of care which would raise the presumption of a conscious indifference to consequences. Accordingly, there is sufficient evidence to support the punitive damages award.