Court Opinion

ID: 9452800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:52:28.972294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:21.852418
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
PER CURIAM:
Roginsky’s fifty-five page petition for rehearing warrants a few additional ones from us.
While contending that we are concluded by the trial judge’s decision in Ostopowitz v. Wm. S. Merrell Co., Supreme Court, Westchester County, New York, No. 5879/63, see fn. 3 to our opinion, now under appeal by the defendant to the Appellate Division, Second Department, Roginsky urges, as “the chief relief sought,” that we “suspend” our decision until appellate proceedings in that case and another, Space v. Richardson-Merrell, Inc., now on trial in Broome County, New York, are concluded. We do not regard ourselves as bound by the rulings of a state nisi prius judge, although we treat these with respect.1 Insofar as Fidelity Union Trust Co. v. Field, 311 U.S. 169, 61 S.Ct. 176, 85 L.Ed. 109 (1940), on which plaintiff relies, may have indicated such a duty of abnegation, King v. Order of United Commercial Travelers, 333 U.S. 153, 68 S.Ct. 488, 92 L.Ed. 608 (1948) and Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of America, 350 U.S. 198, 204-205, 76 S.Ct. 273, 100 L.Ed. 199 (1956) id. at 209-212, 76 S.Ct. 273 (concurring opinion of Mr.. Justice Frankfurter), have removed this, in favor of Professor Corbin’s earlier view that when a federal court must determine state law, it should not slavishly follow lower or even upper court decisions but ought to consider all the data the highest court of the state would use. See Corbin, The Laws of the Several States, 50 Yale L.J. 762 (1941). Such is the established position of this court. See, e. g., Strubbe v. Sonnenschein, 299 F.2d 185, 188-189 (2 Cir. 1962); Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp. v. Public Util. Dist. No. 2, 319 F.2d 94, 103 (2 Cir. 1963); and Evans v. S. J. Groves & Sons Co., 315 F.2d 335, 341-345 (2 Cir. 1963), a negligence case in which we predicted the resu’t later reached by the New York Court of Appeals in Pfaffenbach v. White Plains Express Corp., 17 N.Y.2d 132, 269 N.Y.S. 2d 115, 216 N.E.2d 324 (1966). In any event we in no way disagree with the Supreme Court Justice’s ruling that “high moral culpability” may justify the award of punitive damages under New York law, a position based on the lead*852ing case of Walker v. Sheldon, 10 N.Y.2d 401, 404-405, 223 N.Y.S.2d 488, 491, 179 N.E.2d 497 (1961), which we also cited, p. 842. And we cannot say whether or not we disagree with his holding that Mrs. Ostopowitz met the burden required for submission of the issue to the jury since, as previously pointed out, slip opinion 1828 n. 16, we do not know what the record in that trial was and do not consider ourselves required to search it out. Indeed, in an answer to the petition for rehearing which we permitted to he filed, defendant asserts that the Ostopowitz record does differ in some important respects.
We are similarly unimpressed by plaintiff’s alternative position. If Ro- . ginsky wished a truly authoritative ruling on state law, he should have sued in 3 state court. The suggestion that the federal courts should suspend decision after their time has been taken by a twenty day trial and an appeal requiring detailed examination of an appendix of more than 2000 printed pages and hundreds of exhibits comes with rather ill grace when advanced by counsel for the first time more than three months after “the appeal was argued and only after an adverse decision, although the Ostopowitz ruling was reported a week after the argument. We think plaintiff would have been rightly outraged if, in the ■event of affirmance, defendant had now made a similar suggestion. Moreover, plaintiff has received what the jury considered full compensation for the cataracts, arrested at an early stage,1 caused by his taking MER/29, if indeed they were so caused, see p. 836 (and the other •cases pending in the District Court and the New York courts will afford ample opportunity for punishment and deterrence if our legal views should prove ill-founded. Since, as we indicated in our opinion, at n. 16, the district court should not press the other MER/29 plaintiffs to trial if they prefer to await the final decision of similar cases by the New York courts, we fail to understand why our prediction of New York law will have the large impact on these actions that counsel fear. In any event this would not seem a matter in which Roginsky is concerned.
* Plaintiff objects to our remarks on the problem of multiple punitive damage awards for serious negligence in the manufacture of goods or the rendition of services, claiming that this question has here arisen “when the MER/29 litigation is pretty well at an end.”2 Our concern over multiple punitive damage awards was not, as counsel contend, solely about Richardson-Merrell or even drug manufacturers in general but about all manufacturers, suppliers and consumers of goods and services. Pages 839-841. Also, as plaintiff concedes, the only conclusion we drew from this analysis was “that the consequences of imposing punitive damages in a case like the present are so serious that the New York Court of Appeals would subject the proof to particularly careful scrutiny.” A good discussion that has become available since our opinion was rendered states that “If one accepts the proposition that the consequences of punitive damages can be ‘momentous and serious’ ” — as can scarcely be denied where the defendant is exposed to liability to many plaintiffs —“then justice requires increasing the burden of persuasion of the plaintiff in a punitive damages action.” Comment, Criminal Safeguards and the Punitive Damages Defendant, 34 U.Chi.L.Rev. 408, 417, 418 (1967).3
We have reviewed plaintiff’s extensive criticisms of our summary of the *853evidence with the care required by the earnestness of the petition and by counsel’s technique of referring to testimony and exhibits in a staccato manner that often creates an impression rather different than when the evidence is read. We find nothing to persuade us that our summary was in error.4 'While counsel are quite right that we did not mention every item of evidence on which plaintiff had relied, as our opinion clearly stated at p. 844, we had carefully considered the additional items cited. The case was indeed a close one and we did not decide that plaintiff had “no proof” as his petition quite unjustifiably says but rather “no. proof from which a jury could properly conclude that defendant’s officers manifested deliberate disregard for human welfare,” p. 850. After thorough reconsideration that remains our view ;5 counsel tend to forget that even when the burden of persuasion is but the ordinary one of preponderance, the winner of a verdict is entitled only to inferences the evidence fairly supports.
Counsel’s final point is that it may have been a mistake to try the case and argue the appeal on the basis that complicity by defendant’s presidents or vice-presidents must be shown to warrant a punitive award, see p. 842, n. 17. They find support for the view that the acts of inferior supervisory employees may be enough in the brief opinion in Soucy v. Greyhound Corp., 27 A.D.2d 112, 276 N.Y.S.2d 173 (3d Dept. 1967), a case decided on the pleadings which we cited for a different point although it had not been cited to us and which we do not find very helpful on the instant question,6 and in General Motors Acceptance Corp. v. Froelich, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 357, *854273 F.2d 92 (D.C.Cir. 1959), a case which although cited to us we did not discuss in view of the agreement of counsel, conceded in the petition for rehearing, “that officer participation must be shown,” under New York law. Plaintiff asks us to direct the district judge to grant him a new trial on punitive damages at which he can present this theory or, alternatively, that we allow the judge to do so. We shall make no such direction. On the other hand, nothing in our judgment would prevent the judge from granting this extraordinary relief if in the exercise of a sound discretion he should think it to be warranted.
The petition for rehearing is denied.

. The petition for rehearing now characterizes him as a “blinded consumer.”

. We find this argument somewhat hard to reconcile with the statement on the same page of the petition that our holding “jeopardizes some 75 other MER/29 cases in the same district court as BoginsJcy.”

. The Comment adds, “It is significant that in other kinds of civil action, courts have increased the plaintiff’s burden of persuasion as the possible consequences to the defendant increase.” 34 U.Chi.L.Rev. at 418 and 434. See Woodby v. Immigration & Natuaralization Service, 385 U.S. 276, 285, 87 S.Ct. 483, 17 L.Ed.2d 362 (1966).

. Since counsel characterize our statement concerning the surprise inspection of the Merrell plant in April, 1962, p. 850 as “the most indefensible of all” and indeed as “laughable,” we take this as an example. The testimony of Getman, president and general manager of the Merrell Division, a witness called by the plaintiff, was that the Division had concluded on Friday, April 6, 1962, to withdraw the drug on the basis of the superimposition of the report as to the six year old boy at the Mayo Clinic upon the increasing reports of cataracts “a number of which, in the opinion of those who reviewed them, had no connection, had no possible connection with the drug.” Get-man stated that before withdrawing MER/29 he was obliged to consult officials of the parent company because of the importance of MER/29, the contrary position taken by the Merrell Division the previous November, and the marketing of the drug in foreign countries outside the Division’s jurisdiction. To that end, on Monday, April 9, he addressed a memorandum to officials of the parent company, evidently after some telephoning to find a suitable date, setting the meeting for April 26 “in view of the travel schedules” of the individuals concerned. His memorandum reported the alarming news from Mayo, an adverse report from a Chicago ophthalmologist, and an inquiry from members of Parliament in Canada; it also stated that FDA personnel were then at the Merrell plant getting data and that he anticipated they would request or order withdrawal but thought they would allow decision to be deferred until the week of April 23 because of absences of company officials in Europe. He added that “if conditions develop more rapidly, changes will have to be made in these plans and a decision made earlier.” In fact the decision was made on April 12. We fail to see how this is inconsistent with what we said as distinguished from what we are said to have said.

. We are unable to perceive the inconsistency which plaintiff finds between our decision and the well-known ease of Reynolds v. Pegler, 123 F.Supp. 36 (S.D.N.Y. 1954), aff’d, 223 F.2d 429 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 350 U.S. 846, 76 S.Ct. 80, 100 L.Ed. 754 (1955). Apart from possible • distinctions as to libel actions, the corporate defendants there knew of an earlier unjustified attack by Pegler and had left full decision over release of the offending column to subordinates although fully aware of the danger that any further article on Reynolds was likely to be libelous. Moreover, defendants stipulated that the column was submitted to the corporations and distributed through their “duly authorized officers” (Brief for Appellee at 53).

. Plaintiff concedes he “is not claiming' that Soucy brings a new theory into New York which was unavailable to him at the time of the first trial,” and refers to the cases we cited at p. 842, n. 17.