Opinion ID: 783516
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Totality of Gore Factors

Text: 52 Police brutality cannot be tolerated in our society, and punitive damages awards serve a critical role in deterring such misconduct. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., ___ U.S. at ___, 123 S.Ct. at 1519 (By contrast [to compensatory damages], punitive damages serve a broader function; they are aimed at deterrence and retribution.). Pedersen abused a position of respect and authority to commit malicious and repeated acts of violence against a vastly weaker and helpless victim. We are thoroughly convinced that this conduct was sufficiently reprehensible to justify some degree of punitive damages. There must, however, be an upper limit to that award, and after carefully evaluating the Gore factors, and taking into consideration the sizable compensatory damages award Rebecca DiSorbo would receive if she remits, we are compelled to conclude that the $1.275 million punitive damages award exceeded that limit. See id. at 1526. 53 To determine the appropriate level of punitive damages, we assess such awards in other police misconduct cases. See Lee, 101 F.3d at 812. The defendant officer in Lee struck the plaintiff, who was handcuffed, eight or nine times in the head with his police baton, to the point where the plaintiff was knocked unconscious and had to be hospitalized. Id. at 807-08. Although similar to the instant case, the brutality of these strikes seems to have been more severe than those inflicted by Pedersen on Rebecca DiSorbo, as Pedersen did not use a weapon and did not beat her to the point of unconsciousness. After weighing the Gore factors, we determined in Lee that the jury's $200,000 punitive damages award was excessive, and ordered a new trial unless the plaintiff agreed to remit $125,000, and accepted a $75,000 punitive damages award. Id. at 813. 54 In Ismail, we upheld a $150,000 punitive damages verdict. As discussed supra, the defendant officer in Ismail struck the plaintiff in the side of the head without warning, causing him to lose consciousness, pressed his gun against the plaintiff's head, implanted his knee into the plaintiff's back, and threatened to kill the plaintiff. Ismail, 899 F.2d at 185. The officer's conduct in Ismail appears to have been even more reprehensible than the conduct in our case. While Rebecca DiSorbo suffered a heinous attack at the hands of Pedersen, Pedersen did not beat Rebecca DiSorbo to the point of losing consciousness, never brandished a firearm, and never threatened her life. 55 We find further guidance from O'Neill, where we upheld a $185,000 punitive damages award for the brutal beating by several police officers of a defenseless plaintiff at a police station. The plaintiff, while handcuffed and unable to defend himself, was struck repeatedly in the face and head, with at least one blow struck by using a blackjack. O'Neill, 839 F.2d at 10. An officer then dragged [the plaintiff] by the throat across the detention area, castigating him for `bleeding all over my floor.' Id. Pedersen's use of excessive force was of a different order than the beating inflicted by the officers in O'Neill. Moreover, the jury in the case before us only found liability based on a single officer's misconduct, rather than several officers as was the situation in O'Neill. 56 Upon careful review of misconduct in these cases, we are compelled to conclude that a punitive damages award of $75,000 more accurately reflects the severity of Pedersen's acts under the Gore guideposts. We therefore remand for a new trial on punitive damages, unless Rebecca DiSorbo agrees to remit $1.2 million, yielding a $75,000 punitive damages award, which is comparable to the upper limits of the punitive damages awarded in similar police brutality cases. 9