Opinion ID: 6326325
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: treble damages for civil conspiracy

Text: For two reasons, Sidya argues that the trial court erroneously trebled the compensatory- 4 World Telecom offered this valuation as a floor or “backstop” (estimating it as “approximately . . . half” of World Telecom’s true value) to its other higher valuation figures. See Hr’g Tr. (Feb. 27, 2020) at 7-8; Trial Tr. (Aug. 10, 2015) at 26. 10 damages award to $3.996 million. First, Sidya finds fault with the post-remand decision 5 to treble damages because only one of the various claims against him — the civil conspiracy claim under Code §§ 18.2-499 and 18.2-500(A) — authorized such an award, and the jury did not specify the amount of damages caused by the civil conspiracy. Second, Sidya contends that the trial court mistakenly interpreted the civil conspiracy statute to require a mandatory award of trebled damages rather than a discretionary award. With respect to the first point, Sidya is correct that the jury did not break down the aggregate award into discrete subsets of damages allocable to each specific successful claim. The trial court recommended that a damages award be designated by individual count on the jury-verdict form, but both parties disagreed. Sidya never advocated for a distinct damages award on the civil conspiracy count and, in fact, agreed with the jury-verdict form. Sidya cannot fault the trial court, therefore, for interpreting the jury verdict to attribute the full damages award to each count jointly and separately. As for Sidya’s second point, arguing that the trial court mistakenly treated the trebledamages award as statutorily mandated, we agree that the court came to that conclusion, but we see no need to determine whether the court erred in doing so. See Rickman v. Commonwealth, 294 Va. 531, 542 (2017) (applying the right-result-different-reason doctrine to affirm the trial court’s judgment while “express[ing] no view on the correctness of the lower court’s rationale”). The trial court made clear that while it believed treble damages were mandatory, it would 5 In 2015, the trial court denied World Telecom’s post-trial motion for treble damages. Our rulings in Sidya I and Sidya II, however, effectively “wipe[d] the slate clean on remand to just after the jury rendered its verdict.” Sidya II, 2019 WL 3238643, at  (citation omitted). After the Sidya II remand, the trial court changed its decision and ordered treble damages to be awarded. We have no concerns about this post-remand decision. World Telecom appealed the earlier decision to deny a trebled award, and we remanded the issue back to the trial court. See Sidya I, 2017 WL 3084091, at  n.2. The issue was properly before the trial court on remand. 11 nevertheless exercise its discretion in awarding treble damages in this case if the statute merely authorized a discretionary award. Because Sidya did not assign error to this “separate and independent basis” for the trial court’s treble-damages award, Manchester Oaks Homeowners Ass’n v. Batt, 284 Va. 409, 421 (2012), we affirm the court’s discretionary award of treble damages and decline to address the question whether the statute mandates such an award under the circumstances of this case.