Court Opinion

ID: 9708941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:36:00.246945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:44.880006
License: Public Domain

OLSZEWSKI, Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result of this case, but write separately to address the majority’s obiter dictum, on the relationship between punitive and compensatory damages. Since no exceptions were taken to the trial court’s charge that there need be no relationship between compensatory and punitive damages, this issue was not reserved for appellate review.
I must disagree with the obiter dictum in this case and its reliance on the holding in Kirkbride v. Lisbon, 357 Pa.Super. 322, 516 A.2d 1 (1986). This decision would adopt the rule that a jury’s award of punitive damages must bear a reasonable relationship to the compensatory award. I believe that the better course would be to acknowledge the different purpose served by each type of damages and to adopt the view of the Second Restatement of Torts. The Restatement’s section on punitive damages reads:
(1) Punitive damages are damages, other than compensatory or nominal damages, awarded against a person to *141punish him for his outrageous conduct and to deter him and others like him from similar conduct in the future. (2) Punitive damages may be awarded for conduct that is outrageous, because of the defendant’s evil motive or his reckless indifference to the rights of others. In assessing punitive damages, the trier of fact can properly consider the character of the defendant’s act, the nature and extent of the harm to the plaintiff that the defendant caused or intended to cause and the wealth of the defendant.
Restatement (Second) of Torts Sec. 908. Comment c to that section states that “it is not essential to the recovery of punitive damages that the plaintiff should have suffered any harm, either pecuniary or physical.” Id. comment c.
The considerations given by the Restatement for assessment of punitive damages provide ample means by which punitive awards may be scrutinized. The utility of this approach is illustrated in the instant case in which the trial court ordered remittitur to prevent an excessive award of punitive damages. The rule allowed the punitive and deterrent purposes of this type of damages to be fulfilled in a situation where it was clear that the jury found the wrongdoer’s conduct to warrant an award of punitive damages against it. Thus, the Restatement view provides flexibility without abandoning stability.