Court Opinion

ID: 9627370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:42:45.386026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:45.229248
License: Public Domain

LEHMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I take exception with the majority’s conclusion that “[ajfter BMW [of North America v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996) ], our jurisprudential approach in Wyoming would not pass muster before the Supreme Court of the United States.” In order to bring Wyoming jurisprudence in line with BMW, the majority now requires that the jury be specifically instructed as to seven factors “adopted in BMW from [Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v.] Haslip [499 U.S. 1, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991) ].”
The majority in BMW does not mention the Haslip seven factors, much less mandate that those factors be incorporated into jury instructions in order to satisfy due process requirements. The BMW concurring faction reviewed the seven factors used by the Alabama appellate court to determine whether the BMW jury award was grossly excessive. 517 U.S. at 589-92, 116 S.Ct. at 1606-07. In Haslip, the Court held that those factors imposed a sufficiently definite and meaningful constraint on the discretion of Alabama factfinders in awarding punitive damages. 499 U.S. at 22, 111 S.Ct. at 1045. However, the concurring justices in BMW concluded that while the factors, in principle, might make up for the lack of significant constraint' on juries contained in the Alabama punitive damages statute,1 the manner in which the Alabama courts had previously interpreted the standards and their application in the BMW case imposed little actual constraint. This hardly equates to a demand that state courts adopt the factors or hazard reversal of punitive damage awards in the United States Supreme Court (and indeed, that approach *1058certainly did not insulate the Alabama litigant in BMW).
In addition, the discussions in both Haslip and the BMW concurrence speak of objective factors being used by the court in the course of reviewing a jury verdict as a means of imposing a meaningful constraint on the jury’s decision, not as being included in instructions to the jury.2 As a general proposition, I do not disagree that it may be appropriate to provide the jury with the more specific instructions articulated by the majority. However, I do disagree insofar as such a requirement is imposed on this case to render the jury award invalid. The jury was properly instructed as to Wyoming law; and, as the majority acknowledges, our existing law generally fits within the three guideposts utilized by the Supreme Court in BMW. BMW requires no more. Our task as the reviewing court is to make certain that the punitive damages are reasonable in their amount and rational in light of their purpose to punish what has occurred and to deter its repetition.
The facts in this case present a very different situation from those in BMW, and the award in this case withstands scrutiny under the three BMW guideposts: 1) degree of reprehensibility, 2) ratio of damages to harm, and 3) sanctions for comparable misconduct. Without undertaking a detailed analysis, I note that the record reflects a great deal of culpability on the part of the defendant here that was lacking in BMW: the jury heard testimony that it was common practice for the office staff to throw away medical bills submitted for payment to avoid the 45-day payment rule set forth in W.S. 26 — 15—124(a), and that this practice was instigated by the office manager. Whether or not this was the fate of the Shirleys’ claims, clearly payment of their bills was delayed until a lawsuit was imminent. And while the ratio of punitive damages to harm is 234.375 to 1 and “must surely raise a suspicious judicial eyebrow,” the Supreme Court has rejected a bright-line approach and acknowledged that higher ratios may be justified in eases in which a particularly egregious act has resulted in only a small amount of economic damages. In fact, in TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 113 S.Ct. 2711, 125 L.Ed.2d 366 (1993), where the ratio was a “breathtaking 500 to 1,” the Court upheld the award.
Punitive damages are often criticized because they are perceived as a windfall for plaintiffs and their lawyers, and some would argue that punitive damages be sharply limited or prohibited altogether. But punitive damages serve an important purpose — they punish defendants for reprehensible acts and deter such acts in the future. To limit or eliminate punitive damages gives defendants the ability to factor in a certain amount of wrongdoing (and the resulting punitive damage awards) as the cost of doing business. I would instead urge our legislature to consider a statutory enactment which would allocate a percentage of a punitive damage award to the plaintiff, with the remainder to be directed to the state. States have creatively directed revenue from similar statutory schemes to victims’ assistance funds, legal services for low-income clients, to the state treasury, to their state university system, or to further the cause of the judiciary. See BMW, 517 U.S. at 614-19, 116 S.Ct. at 1618-20 (Appendix to Dissenting ^Opinion of Ginsburg, J.). In this way, punitive damages will continue to serve their worthwhile and justifiable purpose of punishing and deterring reprehensible behavior; wronged plaintiffs will still have adequate incentive to bring suits to hold wrongdoers accountable; and the benefit of the award will not represent a “windfall” to an individual plaintiff, but rather be appropriately utilized by the public as a whole.

. The statute permits punitive damages in cases of "oppression, fraud, wantonness, or malice.” Ala.Code. § 6-1 í-20(a) (1993).

. The jury instructions reviewed by the Haslip court were found to be sufficient because they "described for the jury the purpose of punitive damages, namely, 'not to compensate the plaintiff for any injury’ but 'to punish the defendant' and 'for the added purpose of protecting the public by [deterring] the defendant and others from doing such wrong in the future.' ” Haslip, 499 U.S. at 19, 111 S.Ct. at 1044. The instructions "enlightened the jury as to the punitive damages’ nature and purpose, identified the damages as punishment for civil wrongdoing of the kind involved, and explained that their imposition was not compulsory.” Period.