Opinion ID: 596389
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Damages for Emotional Distress and Mental Anguish

Text: 88 The district court's opinion is devoid of information or explanation of the reasoning process or methodology, if any, employed in arriving at its lump sum award of five million dollars as damages for emotional distress and mental anguish. The record contains explicit testimony of the nature of the Johnsons' suffering, as well as discussion by the district court about the effects that the news releases had on Johnson, and the pain and anguish they caused to him and his wife. These negative effects on Johnson's life are well demonstrated by the record of the trial. 89 Irrespective if all that information, we still have no way of knowing how the district court equated the distress, anguish, and humiliation suffered by the Johnsons with an award of five million dollars. Although that figure might appear to be high, at this juncture we are not prepared either to agree or disagree with its accuracy; we simply have no basis on which to consider the court's determination. Therefore, we remand only this part of the judgment to the district court for verbalization or, if necessary, recalculation and explanation, of how it arrived at the amount of damages to which Johnson is entitled for emotional distress and mental anguish. III