Opinion ID: 1120806
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Liability For Damage For Wrongful Discharge

Text: Because the jury verdict awarding punitive damages did not make clear whether the punitive damages were based on the malicious prosecution claim or on the wrongful termination claim, the issue arises whether the punitive damage award may stand. For clarity, we explain why this issue needs to be addressed. In the next section of this opinion, we hold that the jury verdict that Gibson was liable for wrongful discharge based on a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine should be affirmed. However, we do not address the issue whether the public policy exception to the at-will doctrine sounds in tort or contract, because that issue was not raised in either the trial court or this Court. A decision on that issue should await a proper presentation of the issue. Nevertheless, the answer to that question would, of course, ordinarily determine whether punitive damages may be awarded in an employment termination case based on an exception to the at-will doctrine. Because the jury did not specify whether it awarded punitive damages on the basis of the malicious prosecution claim or the wrongful termination claim, we must, out of fairness to Gibson, assume for the purpose of this case that the wrongful discharge claim sounds in contract and that punitive damages may not be awarded for that claim. Therefore, we now analyze the issue whether the punitive damage award may be sustained notwithstanding our assumption. Several general principles concerning the sustainability of jury verdicts give guidance. First, we exercise every reasonable presumption in favor of the validity of a general verdict. Leigh Furniture & Carpet Co. v. Isom, 657 P.2d 293, 301 (Utah 1982). To give effect to that presumption, we look to pleadings, evidence, instructions, verdict forms, and the manner in which the case was tried to determine whether possible error in the verdict is reversible. In Cook Associates, Inc. v. Warnick, 664 P.2d 1161, 1163 (Utah 1983), we stated: General verdicts are to be construed with a view to sustaining the verdict and effectuating the intention of the jury if possible. Where that intention is not clearly apparent from the verdict itself, inferences may be drawn from the evidence, the pleadings, the jury instructions, and other relevant portions of the record. (Citations omitted.) The nature and amounts of the damages awarded by the jury strongly indicate that the jury awarded damages only on the malicious prosecution claim. The damages awarded against Crosgrove had to have been awarded only on the malicious prosecution claim. The compensatory damages assessed against Crosgrove were in the amount of $10,000. The jury also awarded $1,000 punitive damages, or ten percent of the compensatory damages, against Crosgrove. Significantly, the jury awarded $7,000 punitive damages against Gibson, which amounted to ten percent of the $70,000 compensatory damages assessed against Gibson. We think that the conclusion can reasonably be drawn from the obvious proportionality of the compensatory and punitive damage awards that both those awards against Gibson and Crosgrove were based on the same claim for relief, i.e., the malicious prosecution claim, which was the only claim against Crosgrove. Furthermore, the only real malice that could be found related to the malicious prosecution claim, not to the wrongful discharge claim. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the punitive damages were awarded only on the malicious prosecution claim. There is another line of authority that requires sustaining the punitive damage award against Gibson. In Leigh Furniture & Carpet Co. v. Isom, 657 P.2d 293, 302 (Utah 1982), we held: [W]here more than one cause of action has been submitted to a jury and where one of those causes of action was errorfree, supported by substantial evidence, and an appropriate basis for the general verdict, the judgment on that verdict will be affirmed, even though the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict on one of the other causes of action submitted. (Citations omitted.) See also Rodgers v. Kemper Constr. Co., 50 Cal. App.3d 608, 617, 124 Cal. Rptr. 143, 148 (1975). Here the issue is not the sufficiency of the evidence on one of two claims as in Leigh Furniture, but rather the assumed inappropriateness of punitive damages for one of two claims. That difference, at least on the facts of this case, is not a distinction. Because the malicious prosecution claim was submitted under proper damage instructions and supported by substantial evidence, and because the entire award of damages against Gibson, both compensatory and punitive, is sustainable on that claim alone, Leigh Furniture requires that we affirm the damage awards.