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[W] Wise v. Valley Bank2/5/2002
. Serio, 431 So. 2d 454, 465-66 (Miss. 1983). The right to have a jury consider a claim for punitive damages is always dependent upon something more than the plaintiff's bare demand. The decision as to whether the defendant's misconduct is sufficiently egregious or offensive as to warrant submission to the jury on the question of punitive damages lies initially with the trial court. Paracelsus Health Care Corp. v. Willard, 754 So. 2d 437, 442 ( 20) (Miss. 1999). In this case, by granting Valley Bank's request for summary judgment, the trial court in effect concluded that, even if every allegation of conduct on the part of bank officials as made by Wise were accepted as true, the bank's conduct was not so egregious as to amount to an independent tort. That appears to me to be a correct assessment of the available evidence on the subject.
. The majority contends that the claims by Wise and her daughter that a bank officer told them that there existed a videotape of the activities of the bank on the day of the alleged withdrawal that showed Wise making the transaction, if accepted as true by the jury, would support a punitive damage award. There are two instances in the record where that subject came up. First, Wise's daughter testified that she had a telephone conversation with a bank officer on March 14 in which he represented to her that there was a videotape showing the withdrawal which he was prepared to show her, but that when she and her mother appeared in person at the bank on March 24 to try to resolve the matter, "he said that he had destroyed the tape." Wise herself testified that she went to the bank the morning after she discovered the problem with her account and that the bank officer told her, "I can put you in that window withdrawing $1500," to which she replied, by her own testimony, "Pull the tape and prove I'm wrong."
. The trial court concluded that this was insufficient to create a genuine issue as to whether the bank's conduct in the handling of this matter was so offensive as to warrant consideration of punitive damages. Because the matter is before us on a summary judgment motion, we must review that decision de novo. Yazoo Properties v. Katz & Besthoff Number 284, Inc., 644 So.2d 429, 431 (Miss.1994). I would conclude that the evidence, even viewed in the light most favorable to Wise as the non-movant, simply did not demonstrate the sort of wilful, insulting or abusive conduct on the part of bank officials that would warrant submission of the issue of punitive damages to a jury.
.I would affirm the judgment.
SOUTHWICK, P.J., JOINS THIS SEPARATE WRITTEN OPINION.
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