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Wischer v. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America9/30/2003
opposition to Federal's summary judgment motion, the plaintiffs concede the following:
The fact that Grotlisch was in the zone of danger indicates that he could not have believed that there was a substantial certainty that injury would occur.
....
here is no evidence to permit a reasonable jury to conclude that the [Mitsubishi] employees intended to cause bodily injury to the decedents or that they knew or should have known that bodily injury was substantially certain to follow from their acts.
Mitsubishi argues that because the defendants did not act with malice, and because the plaintiffs concede that the defendants did not intend to injure the plaintiffs, there was no punitive damages issue for the jury.
. Mitsubishi contends that its interpretation of the new statutory standard is supported by the legislature's intent to narrow the types of cases in which a punitive damage award would be appropriate. Mitsubishi points to the guidance offered by the jury instruction committee in interpreting the new statute and suggests that the proper interpretation of the statutory standard requires either intent to cause the accident or injury or knowledge that its conduct was practically certain to cause the accident or injury.
. When faced with this disputed issue during the trial, the trial court agreed with the statutory interpretation proffered by the plaintiffs. Adopting the plaintiffs' interpretation, the trial court determined that there was sufficient evidence to submit the issue of punitive damages to the jury. The court ruled:
There is absolutely no evidence in this record to show that it was the intent of anyone, let alone Mitsubishi, there was never any evidence to indicate that Mitsubishi or anyone intended to cause an injury . There was a finding by the jury on the punitive damage questions that there was an intentional disregard of the rights of the plaintiffs and others.
....
People may do things in a negligent way, they may intend to do a certain act without intending to actually injure or hurt someone, and that's the standard of negligence, care without intending to do harm, does something or fails to do something that a reasonable person would recognize as creating an unreasonable risk of injury or damage to a person or property.
That is the negligence the jury found in this case, and the jury also found that there was just an intentional disregard with regard to the rights of the plaintiff and others to have a safe environment to work in. It's just that simple.
. We conclude that the trial court's interpretation of the statute was erroneous. We reach the opposite conclusion based on the reasoning that follows. Before the enactment of Wis. Stat. § 895.85(3), punitive damages were governed by the common law. There was a variety of terms used to describe circumstances under which punitive damages were appropriate: acting maliciously or in wanton, willful, or reckless disregard of the plaintiff's rights. See Wis JI-Civil 1707; Wangen v. Ford Motor Co., 97 Wis. 2d 260, 267, 294 N.W.2d 437 (1980) (Punitive damages may be awarded if the party seeking those damages demonstrates by the middle burden of proof that there was "a reckless indifference to or disregard of the rights of others and conscious action in deliberate disregard of them."). The legislature, intending to limit circumstances where juries could award punitive damages, enacted § 895.85(3) which, as we have seen, now requires that there be an intentional disregard of the rights of the plaintiff, not merely "reckless indifference" to those rights.
. Clearly, by using the word intentiona
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