King v. U.S. Bank, N.A., No. C085276 (D3 Jul. 28, 2020)
Plaintiff, an employee of a Bank, won a $24.4 million jury verdict in a wrongful termination and defamation action based on the Bank’s having trumped up a bunch of fake grounds for discipline. The damages award has several elements: front and back pay, occupational harm, reputational injury, and emotional distress. Plus $15.6 million in punitives. On a new trial motion, the trial court issued a remittur on various grounds, reducing the judgment to $5.6 million, which Plaintiff accepted.
The Bank appeals on the insufficiency of the evidence on a host of different issues. As is generally the case, it loses.
Plaintiff appeals the grant of the new trial motions and remittitur. Generally, a plaintiff who accepts a remittitur can’t appeal. But he can cross-appeal if the defendant does. The rationale is that the appeal deprives the plaintiff of the benefit of the remittitur.
The Court of Appeal reverses part of the new trial grant, where the trial court ruled that some of the categories of damages were repetitive. The reasons stated in the trial court’s order weren’t supported by the record.
It also reverses a reduction of the $1 million emotional distress award to $25k, but on a procedural grounds. As I have discussed elsewhere, the Code of Civil Procedure imparts very specific requirements on a trial court judge who grants a new trial on certain grounds, including excessive damages. Under § 657, the court needs to issue an order that states both the statutory grounds for the order as well as its reasons. A statement of reasons doesn’t need to be a tome. But it does need to make at least some reference to the evidence that is sufficient to facilitate appellate review. And if the order is procedurally inadequate, the new trial is reversed and the original judgment automatically reinstated. There’s no chance to fix anything on remand.
On the emotional distress reduction, the court’s order stated only that it “finds that the evidence does not clearly support the emotional distress damages award and the award is excessive,” and that the award should accordingly be reduced to $25k. That’s not good enough because it’s little more than a statement of grounds of excessive damages. To hold up, it needed to at least refer to what aspects of the evidence the trial court found to be inadequate.
Finally, in an order that was adequate to hold up under § 657, the trial court found that the evidence of the Bank’s misconduct was sufficient to withstand only a 1:1 ratio of compensatory to punitive damages. The Court of Appeal does not agree with certain aspects of that analysis. But, subjecting the award to the independent due process review required of punitive awards, the Court of Appeal nonetheless agrees that the evidence supports only a 1:1 ratio. Therefore, the punitives were reduced to about $8 million.
Affirmed on modified judgment of $17,179,392.
Showing posts with label king. Show all posts
Showing posts with label king. Show all posts
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Monday, December 14, 2015
A $138 Mistake.
King v. California, No. B257676 (D2d1 Nov. 18, 2015)
This is an appeal of a verdict in a civil rights case. A jury awarded damages against some CHP officers it found to have unreasonably searched the plaintiff. Most of the opinion deals with civil rights stuff like the sufficiency of the evidence of unreasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and qualified immunity. The court does, however, address two minor procedural points.
First, it affirms the exclusion of expert testimony from a police policy and practice expert on relevance grounds. The expert offered testimony about CHP policy, but plaintiff didn’t sue the officers for violating policy. He sued them for violating the Fourth Amendment. And since the court didn’t need some expert say what the Fourth Amendment means, the testimony was properly excluded.
The court also affirms a very small—$138—award of economic damages over a claim of inconsistent verdicts. The jury had found no liability on battery, excessive force or similar theories, but it did find the search and seizure were unreasonable. The $138 represented plaintiff’s medical expenses incurred as a result of allegedly being roughed up during the search. The jury was instructed (without objection from defendants) that Plaintiff was entitled to compensation due to any harm incurred by the officers. Based on those instructions, it was not unreasonable or in for the jury to award the expenses as damages, even if it found no liability on claims more commonly associated with compensation for physical injuries. While the court here intimates that the instructions might have been problematic, nobody challenged them. So a denial of a new trial on inconsistency grounds would be upheld because the verdict was entirely consistent with the charge given to the jury.
Affirmed in relevant part.
This is an appeal of a verdict in a civil rights case. A jury awarded damages against some CHP officers it found to have unreasonably searched the plaintiff. Most of the opinion deals with civil rights stuff like the sufficiency of the evidence of unreasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and qualified immunity. The court does, however, address two minor procedural points.
First, it affirms the exclusion of expert testimony from a police policy and practice expert on relevance grounds. The expert offered testimony about CHP policy, but plaintiff didn’t sue the officers for violating policy. He sued them for violating the Fourth Amendment. And since the court didn’t need some expert say what the Fourth Amendment means, the testimony was properly excluded.
The court also affirms a very small—$138—award of economic damages over a claim of inconsistent verdicts. The jury had found no liability on battery, excessive force or similar theories, but it did find the search and seizure were unreasonable. The $138 represented plaintiff’s medical expenses incurred as a result of allegedly being roughed up during the search. The jury was instructed (without objection from defendants) that Plaintiff was entitled to compensation due to any harm incurred by the officers. Based on those instructions, it was not unreasonable or in for the jury to award the expenses as damages, even if it found no liability on claims more commonly associated with compensation for physical injuries. While the court here intimates that the instructions might have been problematic, nobody challenged them. So a denial of a new trial on inconsistency grounds would be upheld because the verdict was entirely consistent with the charge given to the jury.
Affirmed in relevant part.
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