Court Opinion

ID: 9728155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:00:19.030321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:46.327465
License: Public Domain

STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
“The mere finding of discriminatory action, without more, will not support an award of punitive damages.” Arthur Young & Co. v. Sutherland, 631 A.2d 354, 372 (D.C.1993). Indeed, punitive damages are “not favored in the law.” See Sere v. Group Hospitalization, Inc., 443 A.2d 33, 37 (D.C.1982) (citing Price v. Griffin, 359 A.2d 582, 589 (D.C.1976)). As a civil fine without easily defined boundaries, imposed on an individual basis by individual juries, they are the exception, not the norm.
I think this fact reflects a broader principle; namely, that in order to trigger an award of punitive damages, the conduct in question cannot simply be that required to impose liability in the first place.1 Rather, *103as we have said, an award of punitive damages requires a showing of “extreme aggravation.” Id. at 37. The conduct in question must be characterized by “evil motive, actual malice, deliberate violence or oppression,” or it must be “outrageous ... in willful disregard for another’s rights.” Robinson v. Sar-isky, 535 A.2d 901, 906 (D.C.1988) (internal quotations omitted). It must be perpetrated “maliciously, wantonly, oppressively, or with a spirit of mischief or criminal indifference to civil obligations.” Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co. v. Clay, 90 U.S.App. D.C. 206, 210, 194 F.2d 888,892 (1952).
Before us is a “discriminatory hostile environment” case. To succeed at all, this cause of action requires a workplace “ ‘permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.’” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Seros., Inc., — U.S. -,-, 118 S.Ct. 998,1001,140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998) (quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 114 S.Ct. 367, 370, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993)).
The majority opinion strikingly describes the impermissible abuse to which Bremer was subjected. In assessing the question of recoverable damages, however, several factors should be noted. First, Bremer was a fairly high-ranking official in the employer’s service, who a month before his discharge— which the jury expressly found to be unrelated to age discrimination—received both' a raise and a substantial bonus. During his tenure he was subjected to a series of verbal taunts, but of a generic type which, in significant part, can be found on any birthday card rack in the nation, and from which probably no aging male has been totally immune. Moreover, age, unlike any of the other bases of discrimination outlawed by the Human Rights Act, is a universal condition, a fact which, perhaps, renders comments about age less invidious and susceptible to a higher threshold of tolerance. The hostile environment in this case was created solely by words; no physical misconduct or discriminatory actions were demonstrated. In various instances, Bremer actively used some of the same hostile language he now complains of. The fact that Breiner had supervisory power over Reeves and McKenna, but did not attempt to discipline them for their insubordinate behavior, is relevant to how severe Breiner himself viewed their conduct.
Nonetheless, I agree with the majority that the conduct here, especially that of his immediate superior, was sufficiently “severe or pervasive” to form the basis for a jury finding of liability. Where I part company is in the proposition that the proven conduct was sufficiently aggravated to justify the award of $390,000 in punitive damages. I do not think the jury finding of “evil intent or actual malice” in the circumstances here, without more, adds significantly to the equation. Where “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult” of a “severe or pervasive” nature are necessary components of the hostile environment, it is not easy to imagine a situation where some sort of intent or malice would not be present.
Even if some amount of punitive damages may be properly awardable in this case, we have here $10,000 in compensatory damages coupled with $390,000 in punitive damages, a 39 to 1 ratio. I do not think such a disparity can readily survive the test recently articulated by the Supreme Court to assess the reasonableness of a punitive damages award. See BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 574-75, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 1598-99, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996). Most troublesome are the factors concerning the reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct and the ratio between actual or potential harm suffered and the punitive damages award. Id. at 575, 116 S.Ct. at 1598. For the reasons already discussed, I would not hold that Daka’s conduct here was sufficiently reprehensible—beyond that necessary to establish liability—to merit *104$890,000 in punitive damages. As the Court noted, in accordance with the principle that I have already alluded to, “that conduct is sufficiently reprehensible to give rise to tort liability, and even a modest award of exemplary damages does not establish the high degree of culpability that warrants a substantial punitive damages award.” Id. at 580,116 S.Ct. at 1601.
Equally, if not more important, “punitive damages may not be ‘grossly out of proportion to the severity of the offense.’ ” Id. at 576, 116 S.Ct. at 1599 (quoting Pacific Mut Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 22, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 1045, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991)). “The principle that exemplary damages must bear a ‘reasonable relationship’ to compensatory damages has a long pedigree.” Id. at 580, 116 S.Ct. at 1601. As we have recently held, punitive damages must have an anchor in the existence of compensatory damages. Maxwell v. Gallagher, 709 A.2d 100, 103 (D.C.1998). I think that such an anchor must extend to substantial proportionality with the latter’s generally more concrete element of damages, so as to provide some meaningful standard of measurement. Constitutional extremes should not be deemed the only consideration here; punitive damages, a common-law concept, may entail common-law standards as well. A 39 to 1 ratio must, as the majority says, raise a suspicious judicial eyebrow. I would go further; in the circumstances here, given the significant obligation of judicial review,21 do not think that the imposition of such a disproportionately high punitive award can be sustained.
I might add that, in retrospect, I harbor considerable doubt that our decision in Sutherland, supra, 631 A.2d at 370-72, properly held that punitive damages are available in court-initiated hostile environment cases under the Human Rights Act. The Act itself is, in express terms, silent on the subject. The Office of Human Rights, the agency primarily responsible for administering the Act, has no power to impose punitive damages. It seems to me that if the legislature determines that conduct previously licit is to be made the subject of future liability, it is incumbent upon the legislature to determine whether, in addition, that conduct is to be deemed so reprehensible as to be subject to the equivalent of a civil fine, and explicitly so provide. Furthermore, the legislature can best tailor the amount of punitive damages and the circumstances under which they are to be awarded. This is what Congress has done with respect to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—the legislation which provides the basis for recovery of hostile environment damages for many federal claimants—and, albeit less clearly, in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 1981a (a)(1), (b) (1994) (providing cap for punitive damages in Title VII cases); 29 U.S.C. § 626(b) (1985) (citing 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (Supp.1998)) (providing for “liquidated” damages equal to unpaid wages for willful violations of the ADEA). And of course legislatures do this routinely when a new offense is created that is made punishable by a criminal fine or by a civil fine imposed by the government.
I regret I cannot join my colleagues in affirming the punitive damages award here.

. Admittedly, we have wavered a bit on this point. See Dyer v. William S. Bergman & Assocs., Inc., 657 A.2d 1132, 1139 n. 10 (D.C.1995) ("Arguably, where the tort alleged is an intentional one, inherently containing elements of willfulness, an award of punitive damages must rest upon that tort being committed in an outrageous way; in other words the ‘outrageousness’ cannot *103be supplied by the conduct required to commit the tort itself.”); cf. Washington Med. Ctr. v. Hollé, 573 A.2d 1269, 1288 (D.C.1990) (“Our cases suggest that where outrageous or malicious conduct is the gravamen of the underlying tort, the same conduct can also satisfy the requirement of ‘aggravation’ of the injury, ‘since it is by definition ... conduct which society finds intolerable, and seeks to deter.’ ”) (quoting Sere, supra, 443 A.2d at 37-38); Harris v. Wagshal, 343 A.2d 283, 288 (D.C.1975).

. See Gore, supra, 517 U.S. at S&l, 116 S.Ct. at 1604 (Breyer, J., concurring) (quoting Haslip, supra, 499 U.S. at 20-21, 111 S.Ct. at 1044-45), noting the Court’s emphasis
upon the constitutional importance of legal standards that provide "reasonable constraints” within which "discretion is exercised,” that assure "meaningful and adequate review by the trial court whenever a jury has fixed the punitive damages,” and permit “appellate review [that] makes certain that the punitive damages are reasonable in their amount and rational in light of their purpose to punish what has occurred and to deter its repetition.”