Court Opinion

ID: 9622103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:11:57.468426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:13.345911
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.
Concurring. I concur in the judgment. I agree that evidence of a defendant’s financial condition is a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages, and that the burden is on the plaintiff to introduce such evidence.
In my view, however, we should not address any constitutional questions in this case. I write separately, therefore, to emphasize that I do not join in the majority’s unnecessary discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip (1991) 499 U.S. _[113 L.Ed.2d 1, 111 S.Ct. 1032],
California courts have long adhered to the policy that constitutional questions ordinarily should be reached only if the matter at hand cannot otherwise reasonably be resolved. (Estate of Johnson (1903) 139 Cal. 532, 534 [73 P. 424]; accord, e.g., People v. Stankewitz (1990) 51 Cal.3d 72, 90 [270 Cal.Rptr. 817, 793 P.2d 23].) Because the power of the courts to declare a law or practice unconstitutional is an “ultimate power,” resort to decision on constitutional grounds when other bases for decision are present generally should be avoided in the exercise of appropriate judicial self-restraint. (E.g., Syrek v. California Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1960) 54 Cal.2d 519, 526 [7 Cal.Rptr. 97, 354 P.2d 625].) This prudent judicial policy also counsels against judicial explications of constitutional issues that do not amount to separate bases for decision.
The majority’s discussion of the nonconstitutional grounds for holding that a plaintiff must introduce evidence of a defendant’s financial condition as a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages adequately resolves the issue here. Any analysis by this court of the effect of Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, supra, 499 U.S._, on California law should await a case in which that decision’s constitutional ramifications for California law are plainly at issue, and have been raised, briefed and determined in the trial and appellate courts.