Court Opinion

ID: 9845113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:15:25.647828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:52.057729
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the result obtained by the majority opinion and would affirm the entire judgment of the trial court.
In my judgment, the majority’s consideration of the “trader rule” and its continued existence or non-existence is much ado about nothing. The majority states, “Evidence of the exact dollar amount of damages resulting from the injury is not necessary to support a compensatory award.” Thereafter, in conclusion, the majority states:
“Also, we find no abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in refusing to submit appellant’s requested special interrogatories to the jury, since evidence of the exact dollar amount of damages resulting from appellant’s wrongful dishonors is not necessary to support an award of compensatory damages.”
I find that language of the majority impossible to reconcile with its abrupt rejection of the trader rule. Evidently, once a depositor has stated, “in my opinion, my credit standing and reputation were damaged,” a jury may award damages without any evidence of a specific dollar amount as foundation therefor much as a jury without specific foundation therefor must nevertheless award a specific dollar amount for the pain and suffering of a personal injury plaintiff or to compensate for the loss of reputation of a plaintiff who has been libeled or slandered. In truth, I see little difference obtained by the “rule” announced by the majority today and the results obtained by the trader rule.
Further, I do not view instruction No. 23 as does the majority. I find nothing therein which conflicts with the majority rule announced today, particularly in view of the language of that instruction “then the plaintiff is not required to prove any particular amount of damage for harm to its credit or business standing * * *.”
As amply pointed out in the dissent of Bistline, J., the plaintiff here carried any required burden or proof by demonstrating that its credit standing and reputation had been damaged and obviously, to me at least, the jury assigned a value to that damage in accord with the theory announced by the majority today.
I must note lastly that the majority refuses to address the appellant’s claim that *866the award of punitive damages is excessive. In my judgment, punitive damages awarded by the jury were not excessive. Further, in my judgment, the circumstances in the instant case clearly indicate that the actions of the defendant-appellant bank were, at least, wanton, gross, outrageous and they evidence oppression. To me at least, insofar as the record reveals, the bank gave not the slightest heed or consideration for its depositor, but rather sought to protect itself from a possibility, so remote as to be almost non-existent, that it might incur some type of liability. In this age of computers and other sophisticated electronic devices used by the banking community, the public may perhaps be required to expect and tolerate mistakes and error which enrage. However, I see no reason why the public need expect or tolerate acts of a deliberate and wilful nature performed by an official in the hierarchy of banking which damage, if not destroy, the credit and financial reputation of a depositor. I submit that a bank must anticipate that the result of such conduct may well be the assessment of punitive damages.