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Guaranty Pest Control12/30/2002
On Return from Remand
On June 28, 2002, this court directed the trial court to enter an order in compliance with Hammond v. City of Gadsden, 493 So. 2d 1374 (Ala. 1986), and to file a return with this court. The trial court has complied with the mandate of this court by entering an order declining to remit the punitive-damages award in this case and specifying its reasons, and the parties have filed supplemental briefs in response to the trial court's ruling. We therefore turn to the other issues Guaranty raises on appeal, which include (1) whether the jury's verdict holding Guaranty liable on the Bushes' claims is sufficiently supported by the evidence; (2) whether the jury's compensatory-damages award is excessive; (3) whether the jury's punitive-damages award is sufficiently supported by the evidence; and (4) whether the jury's punitive-damages award is excessive.
The first of these issues, whether there was sufficient evidence to support liability on the Bushes' claims, was raised in the trial court via Guaranty's motions for a judgment as a matter of law ("JML") under subsections (a) and (b) of Rule 50, Ala. R. Civ. P. In reviewing the propriety of a trial court's judgment as to such motions, we are governed by the following principles:
"'The standard of review applicable to a ruling on a motion for [a JML] is identical to the standard used by the trial court in granting or denying [that] motion. Thus, in reviewing the trial court's ruling on the motion, we review the evidence in a light most favorable to the non-movant, and we determine whether the party with the burden of proof has produced sufficient evidence to require a jury determination.
"'....
"'... In ruling on a motion for a , the trial court is called upon to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to submit a question of fact to the jury; for the court to determine that it was, there must have been "substantial evidence" before the jury to create a question of fact. "Substantial evidence is evidence of such weight and quality that fair-minded persons in the exercise of impartial judgment can reasonably infer the existence of the fact sought to be proved."'" Congress Life Ins. Co. v. Barstow, 799 So. 2d 931, 936 (Ala. 2001) (quoting American Nat'l Fire Ins. Co. v. Hughes, 624 So. 2d 1362, 1366-67 (Ala. 1993)).
Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the Bushes, we note the following pertinent facts. James Bush is a retired brick mason who owns, with his wife Helen, a home in Bibb County in which the two of them have lived since the late 1970s. The Bushes began construction work on the house in 1976 or 1977.
In April 1979, before the house was fully completed, a representative of Guaranty contacted the Bushes and offered to provide a termite treatment for the house for $200. On or about April 24, 1979, Helen Bush signed a contract form authorizing Guaranty to treat the Bushes' house for subterranean termites and agreeing to pay Guaranty $200 in four installments. That work order provided that a Guaranty representative would remove all trash and debris containing cellulose from the house's crawl area, would remove all visible termite tunnels, would drill the brick veneer foundation walls "every 16-24 inches" and treat them with "termite chemical" (i.e., termiticide), would inject termiticide around the outside perimeter of the house, and would "trench" the soil underneath piers and supports and treat that soil with termiticide. The contract further provided that Guaranty would "reinspect the property within one year of initial service," and stated that should reinfestation occur within that one-year period, Guaranty would "re-inspect and re-tr
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