Court Opinion

ID: 9495535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:04:58.878235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:04.241011
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Chrysler’s initial assignment of error has two branches. In the first branch, Chrysler contends that the plaintiff, Mrs. Clark, failed to introduce evidence legally sufficient to show that the alleged defect in the design of the door latch system on her husband’s Dodge Ram was a substantial factor in causing Mr. Clark’s injuries and death. My colleagues on the panel do not find this contention persuasive. Neither do I.
In the second branch, Chrysler contends that the evidence was insufficient to support an award of punitive damages. Again my colleagues on the panel are unpersuaded. Here I must part company with them; if my understanding of the law is correct, the question of punitive damages should never have been submitted to the jury in this case.
“The whole issue of punitive damages is becoming an increasingly problematic one,” our court observed in an en banc decision handed down less than a year before the case at bar went to trial, “... as a sort of game-show mentality leads some contemporary juries to award punitive damages in amounts that seem utterly capricious.” Moreno v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 99 F.3d 782, 792 (6th Cir.1996) (en banc) (footnote omitted). “Punitive damages pose an acute danger of arbitrary deprivation of property,” the Supreme Court warned in Honda Motor Co., Ltd. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415, 432, 114 S.Ct. 2331, 129 L.Ed.2d 336 (1994), and courts must be vigilant to see that those who engage in productive economic activity are not subjected to deprivations of property that could not only raise serious constitutional questions, but could ultimately threaten the continued vitality of our liberal economic system.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is by no means unaware of these concerns. In 1988 the Commonwealth adopted tort reform legislation designed to limit the recovery of punitive damages to cases where — “by clear and convincing evidence” — the plaintiff proves “that the defendant from whom such damages are sought acted toward the plaintiff with op*483pression, fraud or malice.” KRS 411.184(2). “[Oppression, fraud [and] malice” are defined in terms that bar the award of punitive damages for negligence or other misconduct not actually intended to result in injury or not committed with “flagrant indifference” to the plaintiffs rights and “a subjective awareness” that injury will result:
“(a) ‘Oppression’ means conduct which is specifically intended by the defendant to subject the plaintiff to cruel and unjust hardship.
(b) ‘Fraud’ means an intentional misrepresentation, deceit, or concealment of material fact known to the defendant and made with the intention of causing injury to the plaintiff.
(c) ‘Malice’ means either conduct which is specifically intended by the defendant to cause tangible or intangible injury to the plaintiff or conduct that is carried out by the defendant both with a flagrant indifference to the rights of the plaintiff and with a subjective awareness that such conduct will result in human death or bodily harm.” KRS 411.184(1).
In Williams v. Wilson, 972 S.W.2d 260 (Ky.1998), the Supreme Court of Kentucky held KRS 411.184(1)(c) to be unconstitutional under Kentucky’s “jural rights doctrine.” The Williams court expressed no opinion as to the constitutionality of KRS 411.184(2), which requires “clear and convincing evidence” for the award of punitive damages. I presume that KRS 411.184(2) is constitutional. See Anderson v. Wade, 33 Fed.Appx. 750 (6th Cir.2002), an unpublished decision of this court where we analyzed the pertinent Kentucky cases and concluded that the Kentucky punitive damages statute remains good law “with the exception of KRS 411.184(1)(c).” Id. at 759.
With the demise of KRS 411.184(1)(c) and its definition of “malice,” what is it that must be proved, by clear and convincing evidence, before punitive damages may be awarded in Kentucky? Absent “oppression” or “fraud,” which the plaintiff does not claim to have proved here, Williams teaches that we are to fall back on the Kentucky common law rule restated thus in Horton v. Union Light, Heat & Power Co., 690 S.W.2d 382, 389-90 (Ky.1985):
“In order to justify punitive damages there must be first a finding of failure to exercise reasonable care, and then an additional finding that this negligence was accompanied by ‘wanton or reckless disregard for the lives, safety or property of others.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.)
The record before us, as I read it, merely supports a finding of garden-variety negligence on Chrysler’s part. I find in the record no “clear and convincing evidence” that Chrysler was guilty of “wanton or reckless disregard” for the lives and safety of its customers. The record shows, on the contrary, that the design of Chrysler’s door latch was in full compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 206, promulgated by the United States Government in an effort to assure door latch safety. “In most contexts,” at least, “... compliance with a statutory standard should bar liability for punitive damages.” W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts, § 36, at 233 n. 41 (5th Ed.1984).
The record further shows that Chrysler equipped its truck with a seatbelt that undoubtedly would have saved Mr. Clark’s life if he had only used it. Virtually any product can cause injury or death if misused, and by his failure to buckle up, Mr. Clark was failing to use his truck in the manner intended by the manufacturer. The hard truth, uncomfortable though it may be to say so, is that if anyone was *484reckless in this situation, it was Mr.- Clark himself, not Chrysler.
Under the law of Kentucky and the findings of the jury in this case, Chrysler must pay more than $235,000 in compensatory damages for its failure to go beyond what was required of it by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. As indicated above, I have no problem with this. I have a serious problem, however, with the use of Kentucky’s judicial system to relieve Chrysler of an additional $3 million — more than 12 times the recoverable compensatory damages — for its supposed recklessness in failing to equip the truck with a door latch that would have spared Mr. Clark the inconvenience of buckling his seatbelt.
Accordingly, although I concur in most of Judge Oliver’s well-written opinion, I respectfully dissent from Part V B of the opinion and from the affirmance of the $3 million punitive damage award.