Court Opinion

ID: 9779048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:34:28.576217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:20.059720
License: Public Domain

CORNELIUS, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the disposition of this case, but write separately to elaborate on the reasons why we, in the exercise of our exclusive fact jurisdiction1, find the punitive damages excessive.
In judging the reasonableness of punitive damages, we consider the nature of the wrong, the character of the conduct involved, the degree of the wrongdoer’s culpability, the situation and sensibilities of the parties, and the extent to which the conduct offends a public sense of justice and propriety. Alamo National Bank v. Kraus, 616 S.W.2d 908 (Tex.1981).
The award of $10,000,000.00 punitive damages is clearly excessive and supported by insufficient evidence when judged by those standards. The injury in this case was purely financial. Unlike personal injury cases where monetary damages cannot replace a lost life or restore a maimed body, the actual damage award here makes the injured parties completely whole, except for attorney’s fees and inconvenience. The bank’s conduct, although it could *910amount to a breach of its fiduciary duty, did not involve criminal or even malicious acts, nor did it produce any direct benefit to the bank at appellees’ expense. The justification for imposing punitive damages upon a defaulting fiduciary usually is that it would not be right to merely require the fiduciary to return “his ill-gotten gains.” See International Bankers Life Insurance Co. v. Holloway, 368 S.W.2d 667 (Tex. 1963). In this case the bank has no “ill-gotten gains” to return; instead the very substantial actual damages will come from its own pocket. The evidence of bad faith and self-dealing in this case is tenuous at best. Although we have found such evidence sufficient to support the jury’s findings, it barely rises to the level required to impose liability. There was no mental or physical abuse, personal outrage, insult or opprobrious conduct calculated to injure appellees’ sensibilities. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that the bank tried to act according to good business practices. And, although we may say that the public policy of the state is violated when a trustee breaches his duty, when the actual damage recovery for such breach is as large as it is in this case, punitive damages twice that award are manifestly ample to punish the wrongdoer and assuage the “public outrage.”
Considering the evidence in the light of the foregoing facts, an award of $10,000,-000.00 in punitive damages is such as to shock the conscience of the court and indicate that the award was the result of passion and an attempt to grant an unjustified windfall to appellees, rather than the result of an objective assessment of evidence in order to accomplish the purposes of punitive damages.

. Excessiveness of punitive damages is a fact question on which the Court of Appeals’ decision is final. Wilson v. Freeman, 108 Tex. 121, 185 S.W. 993 (1916); Cotton v. Cooper, 209 S.W. 135 (Tex.Comm’n App.1919, opinion adopted).