Court Opinion

ID: 9467930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:59:48.149232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:35.763245
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I agree with the court that the District’s improper motive was overwhelmingly established. In this circumstance this is a classic case for considering punitive damages in the true punitive sense. However, I am troubled by the concept that beneficial owners, or customers, of a quasi public utility, or the taxpayers in a municipality, should be punished for actions over which they had, at best, only remote control. A few of the members of defendant District voted against this particular conduct; it appears that most did not vote at all. Nevertheless, the court, bringing to fruition its indication in Fact Concerts v. City of Newport, ante, would have these members extensively punished, when their very maximum offense would seem to be negligence. I would think the burden of compensatory damages and attorney’s fees enough.
Alternatively, this type of case does not seem to me an appropriate medium to further the deterrent aspect of punitive damages. I wonder how likely this example will serve to get out the voters in some other, unconnected, organization and make them “vote right.”
Finally, punitive damages is a highly subjective matter. However improper the conduct in the present case, it is not to be overlooked, when considering the applicability of the principle to this type of defendant, that the mere possibility that some jury may award punitive damages may have a more deterrent effect upon the freedom to vote than that freedom should be burdened with. In sum, I share the thoughts of the district court in Valcourt v. Hyland, D.Mass., 1980, 503 F.Supp. 630, 637 — 40, and would vacate the punitive damage award.