Opinion ID: 2584803
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficient evidence supports the jury's award of compensatory damages.

Text: Lorenz argues that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's award of compensatory damages. She challenges the jury's award of lost earnings for Maddox's dog kennel business on mitigation of damages grounds and the lost property value determination on sufficiency of evidence grounds.
Lorenz argues that Maddox's lost business earnings should be reduced because Maddox did not mitigate his damages. As a result of the fire Maddox closed his dog boarding business for two years, reopening it in January 2004. Lorenz argues that Maddox could have reopened his business less than four months after the fire. Maddox responds that he kept his business closed because the ADEC and EPA told him to leave his property alone so they could assess it and clean it up if it was contaminated. A wronged party's damages award is reduced by that party's failure to mitigate. [26] The reasonableness of a party's mitigation is a question of fact. [27] The jury found that Maddox did not fail to mitigate his damages. Because the jury's mitigation determination is supported by the evidence, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when denying Lorenz's motion for a new trial. Lorenz's expert testified that the cleanup procedures recommended by the agencies would take two days to implement. But Maddox testified that the ADEC and EPA told him to leave his property alone until they finished their assessments and any necessary cleanup. Given that the EPA was conducting on-site assessments in June 2002, potentially conducted additional assessments after June, and issued its final preliminary assessment report in January 2004, there is evidence that the agencies were conducting an investigation during the two years that Maddox closed his business. The contamination that the agencies were investigating could have reasonably informed Maddox's decision to keep his dog boarding business closed.
Lorenz challenges the jury's assessment of damages for lost property value. The jury awarded Maddox the fair market value of his property  $72,000. Lorenz argues that Maddox did not prove that his property was worthless. Maddox's primary evidence was from an appraiser's post-fire valuation of the property at $72,000. The appraiser worked under the assumption that the property was not contaminated. But the appraiser did state that he thought that if the property was contaminated it would be worth nothing, and may be less. Lorenz contends that this was an unfair method of valuing the property because the appraiser in his appraisal did not treat Maddox's property as if it were contaminated and was hesitant to assume that it was. Maddox responds that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to determine that the property was contaminated and that, given this contamination, the jury could have found that the property was worth nothing. The jury could have reasonably found that Maddox's property is now contaminated. [28] The testimony of Maddox's appraiser suggests that the property would be worthless if it was contaminated. The jury is entitled to combine evidence from multiple sources to reach its determination. Nothing in the record suggests that it was unfair for Maddox to establish the lost value of his property in this manner. Lorenz also argues that Maddox failed to properly establish the value of his property. [29] Maddox testified that his property was worth $72,000 before the fire. Lorenz did not object to this testimony at trial. Maddox and the appraiser provided testimony suggesting the value of Maddox's property after the fire. Alaska allows lay testimony from the owner of property as to the value of the property before and after a damaging event. [30] Maddox has provided enough evidence for this court to determine that the jury's damages award was not so unreasonable and unjust as to require a new trial.