Court Opinion

ID: 9571856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:35:52.877174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:06.223901
License: Public Domain

Benham, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s affirmance of the award of punitive damages in Case No. S93A0725. However, I must respectfully dissent to Div. 3 (a) in Case No. S93A0726, where the majority opinion reverses the trial court’s determination that OCGA § 51-12-5.1 (e) (2) is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Georgia. For the purposes of this discussion, the Equal Protection guarantees of the Georgia Constitution under Art. I, Sec. I, Par. II, are coextensive with those of the United States Constitution. Thus, the same analysis is applicable to both provisions. Ambles v. State, 259 Ga. 406 (383 SE2d 555) (1989). Since no fundamental right or suspect class is involved, I am in agreement with the majority that the rational relationship test is applicable and that neither intermediate nor heightened scrutiny is required.
The issue we are required to decide is whether the legislature, in providing that 75 percent of punitive damages awards in products liability cases should go to the general fund of the state,4 violated the *546constitutional guarantee of Equal Protection. In considering whether a statute meets Equal Protection requirements, the test set out in Clark v. Singer, 250 Ga. 470 (298 SE2d 484) (1983), requires that the classification be rationally related to some legitimate governmental interest and that it “rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” Id. at 472.
Looking first to the classification established by this portion of the statute, I cannot agree with the majority that all similarly situated plaintiffs are treated equally. The majority opinion appears to limit the scope of “all similarly situated plaintiffs” to those plaintiffs seeking punitive damages in products liability cases. With regard to the confiscation by the State of 75 percent of a jury’s award of punitive damages, the majority gives no reason, and I am aware of none, why all tort plaintiffs who seek punitive damages are not similarly situated. That being so, it is apparent that the statute creates a separate class of plaintiffs who base their suits (and their claims for punitive damages) on products liability, and treats them differently than other tort plaintiffs seeking punitive damages by taking three-fourths of the punitive damages awarded them.
Turning from the scope of the classification to the relation of that classification to a legitimate state interest, I note that the. State has suggested four purposes to be served by the classification at issue: to facilitate business development, to avert an insurance crisis, to prevent windfalls, and to punish and deter defendants. Assuming for this discussion the legitimacy of those purposes, I still cannot find the disparate treatment of products liability plaintiffs to be rationally related to those purposes. While it is certainly arguable that the single award provision of OCGA § 51-12-5.1 (e) (1) facilitates business development by ensuring that those whose negligence has put a defective product in the stream of commerce in Georgia will only be punished once, the diversion of most of the punitive damages into the general fund of the State mandated by subsection (e) (2) does nothing for the defendant or for business development in general. With regard to the asserted crisis in the insurance industry, the situation here is the same as that in McBride v. General Motors Corp., 737 FSupp. 1563 (M.D. Ga. 1990), where the District Court, considering constitutional challenges to OCGA § 51-12-5.1, found the record lacking in *547evidence that such a crisis exists. As for the prevention of windfalls, the provision for giving most of a punitive damages award to the State not only does not eliminate a windfall to the plaintiff, it gives a windfall to the State, which has not only done nothing to advance the litigation, but has not protected the public from defective products and will not be obliged to use the windfall to benefit those damaged by the same defective products. Finally, with regard to the punitive purpose of the provision for taking the greater part of the award and giving it to the State, I agree completely with what the Supreme Court of Colorado said in holding a similar statute unconstitutional,
It goes without saying that placing the burden of payment on the judgment creditor who suffered the wrong bears no reasonable relationship to any arguable goal of punishing the wrongdoer or deterring others from engaging in similar conduct.
Kirk v. Denver Pub. Co., 818 P2d 262, 270 (Colo. 1991). Furthermore, I believe that by removing, or at least crippling, the financial incentive for private citizens to pursue vigorously contested claims for punitive damages, the punishment and deterrence purpose of punitive damages is greatly hindered. I conclude, therefore, that the confiscatory provisions of OCGA § 51-12-5.1 (e) (2) cannot fairly be said to be rationally related to any legitimate state interest. Accordingly, I would hold that the statute violates the Equal Protection guarantees of the constitutions of the United States and Georgia.
While the issue presented to us in this case is a matter of first impression for this court, it is a matter that has been specifically addressed by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia (McBride, supra) and generally addressed by three other courts. Only four other states have statutes similar to ours (Florida, Iowa, Illinois, and Colorado), and only three of those statutes have been challenged. Florida and Iowa, both of which require that the portion of a punitive damages award taken by the state be paid into a special state fund, have held their statutes constitutional. Gordon v. State of Fla., 608 S2d 800 (Fla. 1992); and Shepherd Components v. Brice Petrides-Donohue &c., 473 NW2d 612 (Iowa 1991). Colorado’s statute is more closely akin to Georgia’s statute, and that state has declared its statute unconstitutional. Kirk, supra. While this court is not bound by the United States District Court’s decision in McBride, supra, that our statute is unconstitutional, or by the reasoning of the Colorado Supreme Court in declaring its similar statute unconstitutional, I find the reasons expressed in both those decisions highly persuasive. For the reasons stated in those cases and the reasons I have set out above, I am convinced that OCGA § 51-12-5.1 (e) (2) denies *548equal protection of the laws and is, therefore, unconstitutional.
Decided November 22, 1993.
Webb, Carlock, Copeland, Semler & Stair, Robert C. Semler, William T. Clark, Julianne L. Swilley, for appellant (case no. S93A0725).
Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Michael E. Hobbs, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, for appellant (case no. S93A0726).
Evans & Evans, Larry Keith Evans, Chambers, Mabry, McClelland & Brooks, Eugene C. Bessent, Lane, O’Brien, Caswell & Taylor, Richard L. Ormand, for appellees.
Butler, Wooten, Overby & Cheeley, James E. Butler, Jr., Robert D. Cheeley, Albert M. Pearson III, Patrick A. Dawson, amici curiae.

 OCGA § 51-12-5.1 (e) (2) provides as follows:
Seventy-five percent of any amounts awarded under this subsection as punitive damages, less a proportionate part of the costs of litigation, including reasonable *546attorney’s fees, all as determined by the trial judge, shall be paid into the treasury of the state through the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services. Upon issuance of judgment in such a case, the state shall have all rights due a judgment creditor until such judgment is satisfied and shall stand on equal footing with the plaintiff of the original case in securing a recovery after payment to the plaintiff of damages awarded other than as punitive damages.