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Mobile Infirmary Mudical Center v. Hodgen10/31/2003
itive damage cap or granting a new trial to the defendant.
The trial court correctly applied the law of Life Insurance Co. of Georgia v. Smith, 719 So. 2d 797 (Ala. 1998), to the facts of this case. The defendant, by agreeing that the jury could return its punitive damage award in conjunction with its zero compensatory damage award, waived any right to a jury quantification of the plaintiff's compensatory damages. The defendant could not deny before the trial court and cannot deny before us that the plaintiff suffered calamitous damages due compensation. The zero compensatory award cannot be attributed otherwise than to the proof of the collateral sources of compensation.
WOODALL, Justice (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in Parts I, II, III, and IV of the main opinion. However, I respectfully dissent from Part V and from the judgment of this Court, because I would affirm the judgment of the trial court unconditionally.
I agree with Justice Johnstone, when he states:
"The trial court correctly applied the law of Life Insurance Co. of Georgia v. Smith, 719 So. 2d 797 (Ala. 1998), to the facts of this case. The defendant, by agreeing that the jury could return its punitive damage award in conjunction with its zero compensatory damage award, waived any right to a jury quantification of the plaintiff's compensatory damages."
So. 2d at .
Today, this Court holds "a special interrogatory should be propounded to the jury that gives the jury the opportunity to state the amount of compensatory damages it would have awarded, but did not so award because of the evidence of the availability of compensation to the plaintiff from a collateral source." So. 2d at . I cannot reverse the judgment of the trial court, if Hodges does not accept the remittitur, where Mobile Infirmary never requested any such interrogatory and never argues on appeal that any such interrogatory should have been propounded. Having rejected the arguments actually made by Mobile Infirmary, this Court should simply affirm the judgment of the trial court.
HARWOOD, Justice (concurring in part, dissenting in part, and dissenting from the judgment).
I concur in Parts I, II, III, and IV of the main opinion, but respectfully dissent from Part V and the judgment. In that latter regard, I agree with the observations and rationales expressed by Justices Johnstone and Woodall in their respective dissents. I write further to comment as follows:
Following the adverse verdict, Mobile Infirmary filed its initial "Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict,[ ] or Alternatively and Without Waiver, Motion to Enforce Applicable Statutory Limits of Liability." Consistent with that caption, the only relief sought was either a reversal of the judgment entered on the verdict and a judgment rendered for Mobile Infirmary, or a reduction of the punitive-damages award pursuant to either § 6-5-544(b) or § 6-11-21, Ala. Code 1975. Mobile Infirmary eschewed any relief by way of a new trial. At the hearing conducted on its motion, the trial judge broached the idea of granting a new trial, but defense counsel opted to forgo that option, stating that there was no need for a new trial because of counsel's certainty that the trial court's judgment should be reversed and a judgment rendered for Mobile Infirmary. The trial judge specifically advised counsel, "I've got a week August the 26 and I can set it down right now." Both counsel for Hodgen and counsel for Mobile Infirmary rejected that offer, each expressing confidence in, respectively, sustaining the verdict on appeal or obtaining a reversal of the judgment and the rendering of a v
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