Court Opinion

ID: 9544418
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:55:32.82504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:56.660766
License: Public Domain

McEWEN, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
The depth of the respect in which the members of this Court hold their colleagues of the majority causes me to be hesitant to express a differing view, but I am, nonetheless, compelled to, very respectfully, dissent.
*329Parenthetically, may I note that I embrace, as does my learned brother Judge Peter Paul Olszewski, the position that an award for punitive damages need not bear any relationship to the amount of the award of compensatory damages and that I do so for all the reasons that such a view was adopted by the drafters of the Restatement (Second) of Torts as Section 908. Our Supreme Court has, however, as the majority correctly states, declared that such a relationship must exist and that the jury must be so instructed. Thus, I must on that issue march with the majority.
It is upon another issue that I hear a different drummer. A careful examination of all of the testimony offered at the trial causes me to conclude that the amount of punitive damages awarded actually bears a reasonable relationship to the compensatory damages awarded. Thus, the erroneous instruction—that the amount of “punitive damages need not bear any relationship to the amount” of compensatory damages—was of no consequence, and, in the terms of the trade, was harmless error. Even but a quick glance at the trial testimony makes it evident that it was not the faulty instruction, nor the tortious conduct that inspired the award of punitive damages. Rather, the contempt and arrogance displayed by the representative of the contractor triggered that award.
It is undisputed that finality is a fundamental goal of the civil justice system and I am reluctant to abandon that goal and discard the verdict of the jury in the absence of serious and harmful error. The majority, however, holds that the prevailing party, having proceeded through the stage of pleading, through all the pre-trial procedures including discovery, and through all of the effort that accompanied the preparation for and conduct of the trial, must now convince yet another jury that just redress may only be provided by substantial awards. As a result, the new trial ordered by the majority composes, for the losing contractor, a windfall, and, for the prevailing property owners, a dreadful inequity. *330And, thus, it is that I would affirm the Order of the distinguished Judge Charles B. Smith.