Opinion ID: 1811971
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: I concur in the rationale of the main opinion except as to the discussion in that opinion of the discoverability and relevance of evidence of Vulcan's financial condition in the context of a Hammond/Green Oil analysis. [5] Even as to that issue, however, I agree with the result reached by the main opinionthat any information concerning Vulcan's financial condition other than what it already has produced or promised to produce is not properly discoverable. More than enough information (including, for example, ample information concerning Vulcan's income and net worth) to allow the plaintiff to address Vulcan's financial condition in a Hammond/Green Oil hearing already has been made available or promised by Vulcan. The plaintiff's remaining discovery requests in this regard are unduly broad and burdensome. It is on this basis that I believe the result reached by the main opinion can and should rest. I decline to join the main opinion to the extent it goes further to explain that any information concerning Vulcan's financial condition would necessarily be irrelevant in a Hammond/Green Oil hearing. In Green Oil Co. v. Hornsby, 539 So.2d 218 (Ala.1989), the Court established seven factors that, as a matter of state law, a trial court may consider in a postjudgment review of a jury's punitive-damages award. Factor number 4 is the financial position of the defendant. 539 So.2d at 223. The analysis in the main opinion is based on the fact that the defendant in this case disavowed any reliance on this particular factor as a basis for a reduction of the punitive-damages award, even though it sought a reduction of that award on the basis of several other factors identified in Green Oil. By disavowing any reliance on its financial condition, the defendant essentially stipulates that its financial condition is not so weak as to warrant a reduction in a punitive-damages award of a given amount. That is altogether different than stipulating that its financial condition is not so strong as to warrant maintaining the award at the level set by the juryor at least at a greater level than that to which the trial court, in the absence of any knowledge of a defendant's financial condition, might be inclined to reduce the award. To hold otherwise, which is the effect of the main opinion, puts the defendant in the self-serving position of stipulating that some reduced award amount being considered by the trial court will still be large enough to serve its purpose. It is the plaintiff, not the defendant, who naturally has the interest in seeing that that is true. Logically, it is only the plaintiff who should be in the position of stipulating that a reduction of a punitive-damages award being considered by the trial court will still leave the award at a high enough level.