At 3:00 a.m. on November 22, 2010, 16-year-old Sydney McLemore was driving a Mazda3 with her friend, Natalie Hurst, in the front passenger seat. The vehicle was traveling south on Ross Bridge Highway when Sydney lost control of the car and spun out. The Mazda3 hit a light pole on the driver’s side and spun around it before coming to a stop and bursting into flames. Sydney was able to get out of the car with third-degree burns covering her torso, arms, and neck. Natalie did not escape and died from burn injuries. Her parents sued Mazda, claiming that its Mazda3 was defectively and negligently designed. Sydney also sued Mazda.
After an 11-day trial with 15 expert witnesses testifying, the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Natalie’s parents and Sydney. The Hursts were given \($3.9\) million in wrongful death damages, and Sydney received \($3\) million in compensatory damages and \($3\) million in punitive damages. After a series of appeals, the case finally landed at the Alabama Supreme Court on the issue of whether the jury verdict was constitutionally excessive.
JUSTICE MURDOCK “This Court ‘review[s] the trial court’s award of punitive damages de novo, with no presumption of correctness.’” Mazda makes three very brief arguments as to why the award should be reduced based on the “guideposts” discussed in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore. Those guideposts are:
‘(1) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct; (2) the ratio of the compensatory damages award to the punitive damages award; and (3) the difference between the punitive damages award and comparable awards in similar cases.’
Mazda contends that “the punitive-to-compensatory ‘ratio’ counsels remittitur.” In Cherokee Electric Cooperative, this Court observed, however, that “Alabama law allows no compensatory damages in a wrongful death case. [The ratio] factor, therefore, does not apply here.”
Mazda argues that because there is insufficient evidence of wanton misconduct in this case, there likewise is insufficient evidence of “reprehensibility,” which the United States Supreme Court has called “[t]he most important indicium of reasonableness of a punitive damages award.” This guidepost is also treated differently in the wrongful-death context because of the unique circumstance that, in such a case, the jury is authorized to award punitive damages on a negligence claim. Consequently, this Court has listed certain factors that may be considered in evaluating “reprehensibility” even though no wantonness is present.
“The legislature has authorized the jury to ascertain an amount of damages appropriate to the goal sought to be achieved—preservation of life because of the enormity of the wrong…. The jury’s consideration of the ‘enormity of the wrong’ includes assessing the finality of death, the propriety of punishing the wrongdoer or wrongdoers, whether the death could have been prevented, and, if so, the lack of difficulty that would have been involved in preventing the death, as well as the public’s interest in deterring others from committing the same or similar wrongful conduct.”
In this case, the plaintiffs demonstrated that it would not have been difficult to avoid the defect found by the jury to have caused the fire in question. Indeed, multiple models of automobiles—including other versions of the Mazda3—would not have presented the same fire risk as was present in the subject Mazda3 because those models either had smooth rounded mufflers next to the fuel tank or the muffler was positioned away from the fuel tank. The plaintiffs also raised questions about whether Mazda could have performed more testing in line with failure analysis to detect this particular defect before the subject Mazda3 was sold to the public. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has stated that Alabama’s statutory scheme of awarding punitive damages for negligent conduct is permissible because “[w]e cannot say that it is beyond the power of a Legislature … to attempt to preserve human life by making homicide expensive.” All of these facts counsel against a remittitur of the Hursts’ damages award.
Finally, Mazda contends that “the jury’s punitive-damages award bears no relation to any civil penalty, sanction, or jury verdict in a comparable case because … there haven’t been any.” The Hursts concede that Mazda “has not been the subject of any other punitive damage[s] awards relative to the design of this vehicle’s fuel and exhaust systems.” They correctly note, however, that this Court has upheld awards of similar size in other wrongful-death actions in which there was no history of the defendant’s being the subject of other actions. See, e.g., Mack Trucks, Inc. v. Witherspoon (ordering remittitur of a \($25\) million award to \($6\) million in an AEMLD case involving a tractor that rolled over and caught fire with a person inside the cab); and General Motors Corp. v. Johnston, (after remittitur, upholding a \($7.5\) million award in an AEMLD case in which General Motors had defectively designed its 1988 Chevrolet 2500 series pickup truck and had failed to inform its customers about the tendency of the truck to stall).
The Hursts’ award is not out of line with awards in other wrongful-death cases; therefore, this guidepost also does not counsel a remittitur.
Because none of the factors Mazda raises weighs in favor of a remittitur, we conclude that the trial court did not err in upholding the Hursts’ award of \($3.9\) million for the death of their daughter.
AFFIRMED in favor of Appellant Hursts.
CRITICAL THINKING:
What evidence, had it existed, do you think might have convinced the justices to overturn the judgment of the lower court?
ETHICAL DECISION MAKING:
What values are guiding Alabama’s policy not to allow compensatory damages in a wrongful death case while allowing punitive damages in the same context?