Here’s a belated post about a decision issued last month.  I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while  but I’ve been unable to get to it until now.

This unpublished Court of Appeal opinion doesn’t directly address any punitive damages issues, but is noteworthy because it wipes out a substantial punitive damages award.

The plaintiff was involved in an accident while riding a Suzuki motorcycle.  He sued Suzuki, claiming the motorcycle’s brakes were defective, and persuaded a jury to award $1.7 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in punitive damages.

The Court of Appeal (Fourth District, Division Three) reversed.  The court concluded that the plaintiff failed to introduce sufficient evidence that the accident resulted from a defect in the motorcycle, and that the trial court made multiple evidentiary and instructional errors. Accordingly, the court vacated the entire judgment including the punitive damages.

In this published opinion, the Court of Appeal allows a plaintiff to seek punitive damages for injuries he sustained in a recreational hockey game when he was violently checked by another player.

Ordinarily, under the primary assumption of risk doctrine, a participant in a sporting event cannot sue another participant for an injury that results from the inherent risks of the sport.  The trial court applied that doctrine here and granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.  The trial court noted that, although the plaintiff was participating in a “no check” hockey league, the parties’ witnesses agreed that “no check” does not mean “no contact,” and that being checked is still an inherent risk of playing “no-check” hockey. 

The Court of Appeal (First District, Division Two) reversed the judgment and reinstated all of the plaintiff’s claims, including his claim for punitive damages.  The court held that the primary assumption of risk doctrine does not apply when the defendant intentionally injures the plaintiff.  The court pointed to testimony from plaintiff’s teammates, who said it appeared that the defendant in this case was intentionally trying to injure the plaintiff, rather than trying to make any legitimate hockey play.  According to the court, a jury could rely on that testimony and find that the defendant intended to harm the plaintiff, which would not only permit the plaintiff to recover compensatory damages, but would potentially support an award of punitive damages as well.

Presumably, plaintiffs’ counsel will use this opinion as a template to pursue punitive damages for in-game collisions in other contact sports, and will oppose summary judgment motions with declarations by eyewitnesses who testify that the defendant appeared to have an intent to injure.

This unpublished opinion affirms a punitive damages award against Parker-Hannifin, a company that sold asbestos-containing replacement brakes in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Parker-Hannifin argued on appeal that the punitive damages should be reversed because the plaintiff presented no evidence that anyone at the company knew during the relevant time that its products were harmful.  The Court of Appeal (First District, Division Three) rejected that argument, citing evidence that the company complied with OSHA regulations at its own factory, to protect its workers from asbestos exposure.  From that evidence, the court concludes that the company knew asbestos was dangerous, and therefore should have protected consumers of brakes.

The court’s analysis does not confront the fact that asbestos exposures in the factory would have been orders of magnitude higher than any exposures experienced by users of the finished product, or the fact that the factory workers were potentially exposed to raw asbestos, whereas the end users could only have been exposed to heavily processed fibers with different potential for causing disease. Given those differences between the two types of exposures, many manufacturers in the 1970s took precautions in their factories without believing that any risks existed for end users.  But the Court of Appeal’s opinion does not grapple with that issue, and instead concludes that substantial evidence supports the conclusion that the manufacturer acted despicably and in conscious disregard of a known risk to consumers.

Disclosure: Horvitz & Levy participated in this case, representing Parker-Hannifin’s co-defendant, Standard Motor Products, which was not found liable for punitive damages.