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John v. Coisman11/16/2001
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Brevard County, Charles M. Holcomb, Judge.
St. John, the defendant below, appeals from an adverse final judgment, after a jury trial which awarded Coisman compensatory damages of $102,500.00, and punitive damages in the amount of $333,000.00. The punitive damage award is challenged on appeal as being so gross the trial court abused its discretion in denying a remittitur of the award, and as being excessive under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 121 S. Ct. 1678 (2001). This latter ground mandates that we reverse and remand this cause to the trial court for further proceedings.
The claims Coisman prosecuted against St. John were for false arrest based on state law, assault and battery, false arrest based on 42 U.S.C. section 1983, and for violation of parental rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. section 1983. The verdict returned found for Coisman, the plaintiff below, on all of the claims except violation of parental rights. The punitive damage award was based on the section 1983 false arrest count.
These charges grew out of an altercation between Coisman and St. John when Coisman attempted to exercise his visitation rights with his children, and approached the residence in which Coisman's former wife and children lived with St. John. There had been prior confrontations between Coisman, St. John, and the former wife, and a circuit judge had issued a domestic violence injunction against Coisman. To avoid trouble, Coisman brought with him a Melbourne police officer and did not step onto the property, pursuant to the injunction. However, St. John, an off-duty deputy, insisted Coisman had violated the injunction and demanded he be arrested. When the Melbourne police refused to do so, he called fellow deputies with the sheriff's department. They came to the scene and arrested Coisman. There was no physical violence, but Coisman nonetheless spent one night in jail. Later he was exonerated of the charges, and brought this action against St. John, the arresting officers, and the sheriff's department. A settlement was reached with all defendants except St. John.
We agree there was sufficient evidence for this case to have been sent to the jury and the trial court did not err in failing to direct a verdict for St. John on any of the counts tried. We also agree there was sufficient grounds presented to afford a basis for a punitive damage award. However, the amount of the punitive damage award is the primary focus of this appeal.
This is a new and developing area of law. See Cooper; BMW of North America, Inc. v Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996); Pacific Mutual Life Ins. Co. v Haslip, 499 U.S. 1 (1991). Where punitive damages are challenged on federal constitutional grounds in a state court, the first step in the analysis should be to determine whether state statutes apply to potentially limit or reduce the damages. If they do and the result is remittitur or reduction, this may obviate the federal constitutional challenge. But even if reduced, punitive awards may still need to be reviewed under the federal criteria, since the federal criteria are not the same as the state criteria for limiting, capping, or reducing the award.
The trial court held that the caps on punitive damages set forth in section 768.73, Florida Statutes (1999), did not apply to this case, because the jury found the defendant guilty of intentionally violating the plaintiff's civil rights and that the plaintiff was harmed by the conduct of the defendant. See § 768.73(1)(c). The section 1983 count was the only count for which the trial judge instructed the j
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