Court Opinion

ID: 9571912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:36:11.448209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:10.161685
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
dissenting in part.
In my view the superior court did not abuse its broad discretion in determining that Blumenshine was the prevailing party. Therefore I dissent from the court’s resolution of the prevailing party issue.
In general I do not disagree with the court’s discussion of the law, but rather with its application of the law to the facts. Since the superior court’s determination is fact specific, I will set forth the facts more thoroughly than has the court.
At the outset it is important to understand what issues were contested by Blumenshine. In answer to the Baptistes’ complaint, Blu-menshine admitted that he was negligent and that his negligence was a proximate cause of the accident. The only issues were what damages were legally caused by Blumensh-ine’s conduct, and whether Wilfred Baptiste’s own conduct was a legal cause of any of his damages. In both his opening statement and closing argument, Blumenshine urged the jury to award Wilfred the damages to which he was entitled, essentially conceding the claimed past medical expenses and seven months of past physical impairment.
At trial Wilfred sought past medical expenses in the amount of $19,371, future medical expenses in the same amount, past and future physical impairment and past and future pain and suffering in the combined amount of $675,128, and punitive damages in an unspecified amount. His wife sought damages for loss of consortium in the amount of $50,000. Thus the Baptistes’ itemized request totalled $763,870. Wilfred denied that his own negligence was a legal cause of his damages.
The jury awarded Wilfred $19,371 for his past medical expenses, $2,500 for future medical expenses, $8,000 for past and future physical impairment, $8,001 for past and future pain and suffering, and “no” punitive damages. It awarded his wife “-0-” for loss of consortium. Wilfred’s own negligence was found to have been 25% of the legal cause of his damages. These figures were “net amounts Plaintiff [was] to receive.” Blu-menshine’s motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict was granted with respect to the $2,500 future medical expenses. Thus the Baptistes’ award totalled $35,372. Exclusive of interest, costs and attorney’s fees, and the rejected punitive damages award, the Baptistes received 4.6% of what they argued to the jury was their due. Because Blumenshine virtually conceded the past medical expenses of $19,371, Wilfred received only $16,001 of the total $744,499 *476contested at trial. That is 2.1% of what was sought.
The superior court determined that Blu-menshine was the prevailing party, relying specifically on Hutchins v. Schwartz, 724 P.2d 1194, 1204 (Alaska 1986). The court then granted Baptistes’ motion for reconsideration, requested further briefing, and entered a Memorandum and Order reaffirming its prior ruling. It found:
The plaintiff was requesting a judgment in an amount exceeding $700,000. The defendant conceded that he was negligent and a proximate cause of the accident and in closing that plaintiff should be given his medical expenses.
The medical expenses were $19,371.36, over $5,000 of which were disclosed two days prior to trial and had not been disputed during trial. The plaintiff asked for consortium damages and lost. The plaintiff asked for punitive damages and lost. A substantial part of the trial was devoted to this issue alone. The plaintiff argued that there was no comparative liability and lost. The jury awarded the medical expenses and a total of $18,600 in addition to that.
The defendant defeated several claims of great potential liability and the affirmative recovery was not significant in comparison to the great damages requested.
Each of the trial court’s findings is supported by the evidence. The punitive damages issue consumed a full day of the four day trial, more witnesses being called to testify on that issue than any other.1 The claim was not frivolous: Blumenshine had a significant alcohol abuse problem, and at the time of the accident had over a .13 blood/alcohol level. He rear ended Wilfred while traveling at an allegedly high rate of speed, and earned an appropriate criminal sanction.
The extent of Wilfred’s injuries was also vigorously debated. One of his experts placed the value of his pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life, at $34,000 annually. His impairment was also alleged to be significant. The potential liability for these claims was great.
The question becomes whether the superi- or court correctly applied the law. Our most recent review of the law is found in Hillman v. Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 855 P.2d 1321 (Alaska 1993). We observed:
An award of attorney’s fees will be reversed if the trial court’s determination is an abuse of discretion or “manifestly unreasonable.” Designation of the prevailing party “is committed to the broad discretion of the trial court.”
The determination will be affirmed on appeal “unless it is shown that the court abused its discretion by issuing a decision which is arbitrary, capricious, manifestly unreasonable, or improperly motivated.”
Id. at 1326-27 (citations omitted).
Further, we observed:
“[T]he prevailing party is the one “who has successfully prosecuted or defended against the action, the one who is successful on the “main issue” of the action and “in whose favor the decision of verdict is rendered and the judgment entered.” ’ ”
This court has recognized that “it is not an immutable rule that the party who obtains an affirmative recovery must be the prevailing party.”
Id. at 1327 (citations omitted).
In Hillman we analyzed two cases, Owen Jones & Sons, Inc. v. C.R. Lewis Co., 497 P.2d 312 (Alaska 1972), and Hutchins v. Schwartz, 724 P.2d 1194 (Alaska 1986), in each of which the party who obtained affirmative recovery was held not to be the prevailing party. We concluded that the affirmative recovery in Hutchins was de minim-is:
[TJhe plaintiff sought $275,000 in compensatory damages.... [T]he jury awarding some $1900, which in turn had to be reduced by 40% because of plaintiffs comparative negligence.
Id. 855 P.2d at 1327. We noted that defendant had made an offer of judgment under Civil Rule 68 for $35,000, entitling him to *477attorney’s fees after the date of the offer in any event.2
Owen Jones was somewhat different. Owen Jones sued C.R. Lewis Co. for $119,-663 for progress payments made on the construction of a building partially completed when it collapsed as a result of the March 27, 1964 earthquake. C.R. Lewis counterclaimed for $46,620 for services and materials supplied before the collapse. The superior court held that the building’s destruction discharged the original contract, and that the reasonable value of Lewis’ services and materials was $142,300. In addition, Lewis had salvaged $30,000 worth of Owen Jones’ materials. Thus Owen Jones netted $7,300. However, the trial court determined that Lewis was the prevailing party, a ruling upheld on appeal. We remarked:
This recovery based on the accounting can be classified as an incidental recovery which will not be a sufficient recovery to bar a party who has defended a large claim from being considered a prevailing party.
Owen Jones, 497 P.2d at 314, n. 5. We further remarked that the “main issue” was whether Lewis had to refund the progress payments, an issue on which it prevailed. We concluded that which party prevails is “within the discretion of the trial judge.”
If indeed we mean that prevailing party determinations are within the broad discretion of the trial judge, and will be affirmed unless “arbitrary, capricious, manifestly unreasonable, or improperly motivated,” it is difficult to conclude that the trial judge in this case abused his discretion. The court does not, or cannot, even identify whether the trial judge was arbitrary, capricious, manifestly unreasonable, or improperly motivated.
However, if this court now means that an affirmative recovery can be only de minimis (.Hutchins) or incidental (Owen Jones) before the other party may be determined to have prevailed, then a trial judge’s broad discretion has been significantly circumscribed, without this court ever having acknowledged that it has changed the law governing the determination of prevailing party status.3

. Fifteen witnesses were called on the issue of punitive damages, nine on all the other issues combined.

. Blumenshine made a Civil Rule 68 offer of $35,000 before Baptiste made his belated disclosure of $5,569 additional past medical expenses, a figure Blumenshine did not substantively contest, two working days before trial. Baptistes’ judgment exceeded the offer by only $372. Had he disclosed these expenses in a timely manner, Blumenshine reasonably might have been expected to increase his Civil Rule 68 offer, particularly since he did not contest that the expenses had been caused by the accident. Because of the Baptistes’ timing, Blumenshine had no opportunity to submit a new offer of judgment. On these facts, the trial court might have been justified in relaxing the requirements of Civil Rule 68. See Alaska R.Civ.P. 94.

. The court’s ultimate conclusion is that "[sjince [Baptiste] recovered a significant award, he was the prevailing party.” If the "significance” of an award is measured in relation to the amount contested at trial, then the different language adds little to the prior analysis. Saying that an award to a plaintiff is not significant compared to the amount sought is simply another way of saying that the defendant prevailed on the main issue or issues in the case. The trial court used the word "significant” in this relative sense. It stated that Baptistes' "affirmative recovery was not significant in comparison to the great damages requested." It does not seem manifestly unreasonable to conclude that an award of $16,-001 is not significant compared to the roughly $745,000, plus punitive damages, the Baptistes sought.
However, I do not agree with the use of the term “significant award” if the court intends its application in a non-relational sense: an award that an average person would consider substantial or nontrivial irrespective of the litigation. The significance of an award for prevailing party determinations should be measured in terms of the issues contested by the parties. If the court does intend significance to be applied in a non-relational sense, I suggest that the opinion will be read as an invitation to make recovery of a "significant award” an absolute limitation on prevailing party determinations, even though there is no standard by which to measure what is "significant." Since this court does not offer any basis or justification for its determination that Wilfred recovered a "significant award," in the face of the trial court's determination that Wilfred's "recovery was not significant in comparison to the great damages requested,” I suggest it intends “significant award” in a non-relational, standardless sense. I believe this is ill-advised.