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Romo v. Ford Motor Co.11/25/2003
In the wake of its decision in State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell (2003) ___ U.S. ___ [123 S. Ct. 1513] (hereafter State Farm), the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in the present case. The court summarily vacated the judgment and remanded the case to us for reconsideration in light of State Farm. We have received and considered further briefing from the parties and from amici curiae and we now conditionally affirm the punitive damages portion of the judgment before us, conditioned upon plaintiffs' acceptance of reduction of the punitive damages portion of the judgment to $23,723,287. If plaintiffs timely consent to the reduction, then the judgment shall be modified accordingly and, as modified, affirmed. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 24(d).)
I. BACKGROUND
A. The Roll-Over
In Romo v. Ford Motor Co. (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 1115, we were presented with an appeal from the judgment in a personal injury and wrongful death case arising from a rollover accident. That opinion contains a more detailed statement of the facts and procedural history of the case. For present purposes, we summarize the facts only briefly.
The Romo family was riding in their 1978 Ford Bronco when it rolled over as plaintiff Juan Romo was trying to avoid a car that had swerved in front of him. Ramon, Salustia, and Ramiro Romo were killed in the accident when the steel portion of the Bronco's roof collapsed and the fiberglass portion shattered. Juan, Evangelina, and Maria Romo were injured.
B. The Trial
In a products liability action brought by the surviving Romos individually and on behalf of the estates of the deceased family members, the jury awarded compensatory damages from Ford Motor Co. (Ford) (after adjustments by the trial court) of nearly $5 million. In addition, the jury awarded the Romos punitive damages from Ford in the amount of $290 million. (Ford did not move for bifurcation of the punitive damages portion; as a result, there was a unified trial and the jury returned a single verdict on all issues.) After the trial court granted Ford's motion for new trial of the punitive damages issues based on jury misconduct, both sides appealed.
C. The First Appeal
Ford raised numerous issues concerning both the compensatory damages aspect and the punitive damages aspect of the case. We concluded all of Ford's contentions were without merit. The Romos appealed from the order granting a new trial on punitive damages. We determined that the record rebutted any presumption of prejudicial juror misconduct and that the new trial motion was granted in error. The net result of the appeal was that the judgment was reinstated and affirmed.
After the California Supreme Court denied Ford's petition for review on all issues, Ford filed a petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. On May 19, 2003, the court granted the petition, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to us "for further consideration in light of" State Farm. (Ford Motor Co. v. Romo (2003) ___ U.S. ___ [123 S.Ct. 2072].)
II. DISCUSSION
Our effort to comply with the instructions from the United States Supreme Court has required us to re-examine the purpose and nature of punitive damages and to revisit certain pivotal California appellate cases, chief among them Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co. (1981) 119 Cal.App.3d 757 (Grimshaw). We attempt to report the results of this reexamination in as summary a fashion as the subject permits and not to write a treatise on the subject of punitive damages.
A. The Statute: " or the Sake of Example and by Way of Punish[ment]"
Civil
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