DAMAGES
Limits on Punitive Damages May Be Enforced by Courts
Federal courts have authority derived from the U.S. Constitution to reduce punitive damages awards to constitutional scope without plaintiffs' concurrence or the offer of a new trial, the 11th Circuit concluded in Johansen v. Combustion Engineering Inc., 170 F.3d 1320 (1999).
The case had a tortuous history. Fifteen property owners of 16 parcels recovered compensatory damages for the discharge of acidic water into streams that ran through their property. Individual awards ran from $1,000 to $10,000, for an aggregate of $47,000. In the punitive damages phase of the trial, the jury awarded a total $45 million. The trial judge found this "shocking" and ordered a new trial if the plaintiffs didn't accept a remittitur to $15 million. The 11th Circuit affirmed, 67 F.3d 314 (1995), but the U.S. Supreme Court remanded for consideration in the light of its decision in BMW of North America Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), in which it held that the Constitution does not permit "excessive" punitive damages awards.
When the case went back to the district court, the judge ruled that the Constitution would not permit punitives in this case to exceed 100 times each compensatory award. This resulted in an aggregate punitive damages award of $4.35 millions. In doing so, the district judge did not afford the plaintiffs the right to a new trial if they didn't take the reduction, nor did they ask for one. Everyone appealed.
Sorting out the arguments, Judge Hill for the circuit traced the history of the use of the offer of a new trial or remittitur as the traditional method of judicial disagreement with the amount of damages. But here, where a matter of constitutional limitation is involved, he wrote, "A constitutionally reduced verdict, therefore, is really not a remittitur at all. [It] is a determination that the law does not permit the award. [A] court has a mandatory duty to correct an unconstitutionally excessive verdict so that it conforms to the requirements of the due process clause."
Therefore, the court held, it didn't make any difference whether the trial court offered the plaintiffs a new trial, the power to reduce being within the court's authority to enter judgment as a matter of law. The 11th Circuit panel conceded that its decision might not agree with two other circuits--the 10th in Continental Resources Inc. v. OXY USA Inc., 101 F.3d 634 (1996), and the Second in Lee v. Edwards, 101 F.3d 805 (1996). No matter, the court said. While the Constitution does not prohibit that cautious approach, neither does it require that approach.
FEDERAL PREEMPTION
Airline Deregulation Act Doesn't Preempt All Suits
The Ninth Circuit consolidated five passenger injury cases against airlines in order to hold that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 does not shield airlines from state tort law claims. Charas v. Trans World Airlines, 160 F.3d
1259 (1998), rehearing denied, 169 F.3d 594 (1999). In doing so, the court had to backtrack and expressly overrule two of its recent decisions--Harris v. American Airlines, 55 F.3d 1472 (1995), and Gee v. Southwest Airlines, 110 F.3d 1400 (1997).
The cases were state tort actions based on airline negligence--a passenger struck by a service cart pushed by a flight attendant, a passenger hit in the head with baggage when another passenger opened an overhead bin, a passenger who tripped over a piece of luggage left in the aisle by a flight attendant, a passenger who fell while alighting on a stairway, and a passenger who was bumped from a flight when she couldn't provide a physician's assurance that she was not at risk of a heart attack during the flight. The airlines won in Ninth Circuit district courts.
Reversing, the en banc Ninth Circuit ruled that none of the claims were barred by federal preemption and the Airline Deregulation Act. That act provides that no state "shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to the rates, routes, or service of any air carrier." In renouncing Harris and Gee, the court adopted the concurring position of Judge Scannlain in Gee, who was not a member of the en banc court, that preemption should be judged by examining whether the state laws underlying tort claims frustrate the goal of economic deregulation by interfering with the forces of competition, which was the objective of Congress in enacting the deregulation legislation.
"The purpose of preemption is to avoid state interference with federal deregulation, "Judge Silverman wrote for the en banc court. "Nothing in the act itself, or its legislative history, indicates that Congress had a `clear and manifest purpose' to displace state tort law in actions that do not affect deregulation in more than a `peripheral manner.'" The court went on to point out that the Airline Deregulation Act also provides that airlines carry insurance for liability for bodily injury and death and that a savings clause states that nothing in the act "shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law."
JUDICIAL DISCIPLINE
Public Entitled to Know How They Voted
In 1994, California voters adopted Proposition 190, which reorganized the state's Commission on Judicial Performance. A major provision provides that when the commission "institutes formal proceedings, the notice of charges, the answer, and all subsequent papers and proceedings shall be open to the public."
In Recorder v. Commission on Judicial Performance, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 56 (1999), a San Francisco legal newspaper won a decision from the California Court of Appeal, First District, that the open proceedings provision includes disclosure of how individual members of the commission voted in disciplinary proceedings against individual judges.
The commission claimed the right to withhold individual voting information on the basis of another section of Prop 190 giving the commission authority to "provide for the confidentiality of complaints to and investigations by the commission." But the court examined the materials distributed at the time of the approval of Prop 190 and concluded that the vote of members on whether to impose judicial discipline "is such an essential part of the formal...
