Court Opinion

ID: 9442477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:49:20.541564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:06.574428
License: Public Domain

WALLER, Circuit Judge,
(specially concurring.)
I concur in the judgment. I agree that this is not a case for the infliction of punitive damages for the reasons set out in the majority opinion, and also because, even though there was a failure to recognize the prior right of Allsopp to transportation, such failure was not willful or wanton, malicious or oppressive, but was the result of a series of unintentional errors'. Some of these errors were: (1) The agent on the foreign desk who issued Guthrie the ticket and who also accepted Allsopp’s ticket for transportation was mistaken as to the number of seats available. (2) The Cuban office of the Defendant made a mistake in not notifying the Tampa office that the plane had taken on three additional passengers in Cuba. (3) The agent who issued the ticket to Guthrie and issued to Allsopp the authorization slip to board the plane acted on a manifest furnished by the uptown office of the Airlines on which manifest Guthrie’s, name appeared .but Allsopp’s did not. There was, therefore, a mistáké in not having Allsopp’s name on that manifest. (4) This agent in issuing the ticket to Guthrie had an erroneous idea that the holder -of a credit script such as held by Guthrie had some sort of prior right to transportation. (5) The uptown office made a mistake in not noting and preserving a record of the time that Guthrie had made his reservation. (6) The agent erred in calling Allsopp over the long distance telephone in Lakeland on the morning in question advising him that he would be furnished transportation on that particular plane. All of these mistakes were unintentional and in no sense malicious, wanton, or so gross as to give rise to the recovery of punitive damages.
Punitive damages are not inflicted in ■order to punish for non-willful or unintentional errors, and the failure of the Company to transport Mr. Allsopp on the plane in question was, without doubt, the result of one or more of the errors aforementioned. The embarrassment, humiliation, etc., of which the Plaintiff complains, was a web of his own weaving, brought about by his having undertaken to ride the plane at all events. I am of the view, however, that the evidence clearly shows a prior right in Mr. Allsopp to ride the plane in question. He purchased and paid for a ticket on Wednesday, four days before, and on the Sunday morning in question the Airlines ‘Company telephoned Mr. Allsopp at the home of his brother in Lakeland, Florida, — some distance from Tampa — and advised him that he could have space on the plane that day, and Mr. Allsopp advised that he would be on hand. At that moment the Airlines accepted Allsopp for transportation on that plane, and this occurred quite awhile before Mr. Guthrie ever presented himself at the Airlines office for a ticket. Mr. Allsopp was not advised over the long distance telephone that, “We will take you on the plane today provided someone else does not come in ahead of you,” but he was definitely advised that he could ride the plane. He not only had the reservation but he had the ticket.
The evidence wholly fails to show when Mr. Guthrie made his reservation except that it was some time prior to the Sunday in question.
Because of these facts, I think Allsopp had a prior right to ride the plane and was entitled to his actual damages for breach of the contract, but I think that since the breach was due to an error and not with any idea of willfulness, maliciousness, or wantoness, punitive damages should not be allowed.