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Mobile Infirmary Mudical Center v. Hodgen10/31/2003
t did not because evidence was presented that the plaintiff had available compensation from a collateral source, avoids the problems presented by a trial court's making such finding in instances, such as here, where causation is in dispute.
Under the unique circumstances of this case, including the announcement for the first time of the requirement of a special interrogatory to deal with the combined effect of Smith, Marsh v. Green, and § 6-11-21(d), we affirm the judgment of the trial court, on the condition that Hodgen file with this Court, within 14 days of the date of this opinion, a remittitur of the punitive-damages award to $1,500,000, the amount appropriate under § 6-11-21(d), Ala. Code 1975. Otherwise, the trial court's judgment will be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
AFFIRMED CONDITIONALLY.
Houston, See, Brown, and Stuart, JJ., concur.
Lyons, J., concurs specially.
Johnstone and Woodall, JJ., concur in part and dissent in part.
Harwood, J., concurs in part, dissents in part, and dissents from the judgment.
LYONS, Justice (concurring specially).
I concur in Parts II, III, IV, and V of the majority opinion. I concur specially as to Part I, and I write to deal further with the finding of invited error.
In concurring specially in Part I, I note that Justice Almon, in his dissenting opinion in Life Insurance Co. of Georgia v. Smith, 719 So. 2d 797, 814-15 (Ala. 1998), observed that "when the jury returned its verdicts awarding $0 compensatory damages and $200,000 punitive damages for each plaintiff, the court asked if there were 'any matters that we need to address for the record,' and the defendants' attorney answered 'No.'" Based on that response, Justice Almon stated that he would have held that "by failing to object before the jury was dismissed, the defendants waived any error in the form of the verdict." 719 So. 2d at 815. Here, when the verdict was returned awarding $0 in compensatory damages but awarding $2,250,000 in punitive damages, the trial court stated that it thought that it was a good verdict in spite of the absence of an award of compensatory damages; counsel for Mobile Infirmary stated, "I do too." Such affirmative representation in the case before us as to the validity of the verdict goes much further than the trial court's general inquiry in Smith as to "any matters that we need to address for the record." Further, in Smith this Court was reluctant to penalize the plaintiff "for her failure to require either a verdict for compensatory damages or a verdict for nominal damages as a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages" because such a holding "would be an unfair departure from the recent trend of the precedents." 719 So. 2d at 807. Given an unwillingness on the part of the main opinion in Smith to hold the plaintiffs to the consequences of a procedural default, it is not surprising that the main opinion rejected the proposition advanced in Justice Almon's dissenting opinion that the defendant should be held to a waiver. Here, no basis exists for confusion as to the state of the law and Mobile Infirmary's vouching for the verdict stands on different footing. Consequently, I agree with the main opinion's conclusion that the trial court did not err in denying Mobile Infirmary's postjudgment motion for a JML based on the failure of the jury to award compensatory or nominal damages.
JOHNSTONE, Justice (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in Parts I, II, III, and IV of the main opinion. I respectfully dissent from Part V and from the judgment of this Court alternatively imposing the lesser alternative of the pun
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