Court Opinion

ID: 9549385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:17:18.011939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:13.739027
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
concurring:
While I join the court’s opinion, I write separately to articulate my reasons for con-burring in the answers given by today’s pronouncement.
I.
The first question before us is whether under Oklahoma law punitive damages may be recovered in an action founded upon the theory of “manufacturers’ products liability”.1
Statutory law of this state explicitly sanctions allowance of punitive damages in all actions except those ex contractu. The terms of 23 O.S.1981 § 9 unmistakably provide that “for the breach of an obligation not arising from contract” a jury award “for the sake of example” and “by way of punishing” the offending party may be made in addition to the actual damages. An obligation is deemed to arise from a contract when it is derived from (a) an express promise, (b) a promise implied in fact or (e) a promise implied in law.2 Products liability clearly does not fall under this rubric. Governed by limitations applicable to actions ex delicto, it is treated as a tort remedy. Its gravamen is not breach of a promise but rather breach of a legal duty to market a safe product.3
According to some commentators, a punitive damages claim simply will not fit into a products case because of an inherent conceptual inconsistency. The 'thesis advanced is that the element of aggravated fault, which is essential to every punitive damages award, is irrelevant to recovery on a products theory. In a products case, it is urged, the inquiry is focused not on the actor’s blame but rather on the product’s *520“defectiveness”.4 The argument based on incompatibility is spurious because it presupposes that “punitive damages claims must be established by facts identical to those supporting the underlying claim for compensatory damages”.5 There is neither historical nor legal basis for confining exemplary damages to cases in which the underlying claim is founded on some fault concept. Punitive damages recovery is traditionally available at common law in actions founded on several legally cognizable theories which impose liability without regard to the actor’s fault.6
Because our statutory law clearly authorizes punitive damages awards in all non-contractual litigation7 at law and there exists no conceptual impediment to their allowance in products liability cases, Oklahoma law does not preclude a products plaintiff from either alleging or proving facts tending to support recovery of exemplary damages.
II.
The second question to be answered is: What “character of evidence” a products plaintiff must elicit to warrant submission of his punitive damages plea to the jury?
Insofar as this question may call upon us to forecast a set of rules adapting Oklahoma’s punitive damages award standards for special application to litigation over products safety, an answer here would be inappropriate. It would be at best speculative, premature, ill advised and academic. This case is not here for appellate review on a full trial record.
Inasmuch as Oklahoma’s extant case law does, in my view, amply concretize the current general norms of statutory liability for punitive damages, we should here go no further than pronounce that these standards are available for invocation in litigation over products safety. Additionally, I would include a helpful reminder upon two points of our law: (a) vicarious liability and (b) reckless-versus-wilful conduct distinction.
In Oklahoma, punitive damages recovery is imposable vicariously. A principal — individual or corporate — may be made answerable in punitive damages for those offending acts done within the general scope of employment by any employee — no matter what his level of responsibility in the company’s organization — which would serve to justify an exemplary damages award against the employee as an individual tort-feasor.8
The misconduct for which punitive damages may be exacted is characterized by statute, 23 O.S.1981 § 9, in terms of defendant’s culpability of “oppression, fraud or malice, actual or presumed ...” [emphasis added]. Case law construing this language recognizes that malicious or oppressive intent may be inferred from “complete indif- *521or ference to consequences”, “conscious reckless disregard of the safety of others” or even from “gross negligence”, but mere violation of a statute is not sufficient as an evidentiary predicate for punitive damages award.9
A pronouncement of norms that adapt existing punitive damages liability standards to litigation over misconduct in marketing or manufacturing unsafe products must be postponed to await a case-by-case analysis.10

. By this appellation the concept of strict liability for defective products was first introduced into our case law. Kirkland v. General Motors Corporation, Okl., 521 P.2d 1353, 1361 [1974].

. T & S Investment Company v. Coury, Okl., 593 P.2d 503, 505 [1979]; Anderson v. Copeland, Okl., 378 P.2d 1006, 1007 [1963]; Piggee v. Mercy Hospital, 199 Okl. 411, 186 P.2d 817, 818 [1947] and First National Bank v. Matlock, 99 Okl. 150, 226 P. 328, 331-332 [1924], 36 A.L.R. 1088.

. Kirkland v. General Motors Corporation, supra note 1, at 1361; O’Neal v. Black & Decker Manufacturing Company, Okl., 523 P.2d 614, 615 [1974] and Nichols v. Eli Lilly & Co., 501 F.2d 392, 393 [10th Circ.1974].

. Owen, Punitive Damages in Products Liability Litigation, 74 Mich.L.R. 1258, 1268 [June 1976].

. Direct judicial repudiation of the incompatibility argument is found in Drake v. Wham-O Manufacturing Co., 373 F.Supp. 608, 611 [E.D.Wis., 1974]. Accord Heil Co. v. Grant, 534 S.W.2d 916, 926 [Tex.Civ.App.1976] and Maxey v. Freightliner Corp., 450 F.Supp. 955, 962 [N.D.Tex.1978].
Owen, supra note 4, at 1269; “Punitive awards are tied to a defendant’s conduct, not the underlying theory of liability”. Ghiardi & Kircher, Punitive Damages Law & Practice, Section 6.18, at 67 [Callaghan 1982].
See Annotations in 13 A.L.R.4th 52 [1982] and 29 A.L.R.3rd 1021 [1970].

. Owen, supra note 4, at 1270; McConnell v. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company, Okl., 530 P.2d 127, 129 [1974]; Peerson v. Mitchell, 205 Okl. 530, 239 P.2d 1028, 26 A.L.R.2d 1362 [1951] (actions for harboring a vicious dog); Oklahoma City v. Tytenicz, 171 Okl. 519, 43 P.2d 747 [1935]; Empire Oil & Refining Co. v. Rawlings, 178 Okl. 391, 62 P.2d 1253, 1254 [1936]; Garland Coal and Mining Company v. Few, 267 F.2d 785, 790 [10th Circ.1959] (nuisance actions).

. Dayton Hudson Corp. v. American Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., Okl., 621 P.2d 1155, 1158, 16 A.L.R.4th 1, [1980].

. Kurn v. Radencic, 193 Okl. 126, 141 P.2d 580, 581 [1943] and Dayton Hudson Corp. v. American Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., supra note 7, at 1160, footnote 19. A minority of the states do not follow the vicarious liability rule. See Owen, supra note 4, at 1300-1301.

. Morgan v. Bates, Okl., 390 P.2d 486, 488 [1964]; Wootan v. Shaw, 205 Okl. 283, 237 P.2d 442, 444 [1951]; Keener Oil & Gas Co. v. Stewart, 172 Okl. 143, 45 P.2d 121 [1935] and Garland Coal and Mining Company v. Few, supra note 6, at 790.

. For analysis of various types of manufacturer and marketing misbehavior see Owen, supra note 4, at 1329-1369 and Ghiardi and Kircher, supra note 5, in § 6.27 at 95.