Punitives award of $100K reinstated

Two plaintiffs suffered minor injuries in an auto accident when their vehicle was struck by a drunken driver talking on a cellphone.

A jury awarded plaintiff Victoria Coalson $5,600 and plaintiff Michael Stemke $14,000, and awarded each plaintiff punitive damages of $100,000, but the trial judge reduced Coalson’s punitive damage award to $50,000.

The Supreme Court of Virginia reinstated the $100,000 award in a split decision on Feb. 27.

Fairfax Circuit Judge Bruce D. White had reduced Coalson’s punitive damages award because the 1:17.86 ratio between Coalson’s compensatory and punitive awards was too high.

The high court majority’s recitation of the defendant’s misconduct – a history of drunken driving and a record of day-long drinking before the accident – was a warm-up for their decision that the trial judge erred in halving Coalson’s punitive damage award, based on the relative ratio of each plaintiff’s compensatory damage award to the punitive damage award.

Given the defendant’s misconduct, the $100,000 award did not “shock the conscience” and should be reinstated, the majority said.

Applying the same rationale used in last year’s Allied Concrete Co. v. Lester [VLW 013-6-002], the majority said comparing verdicts “is not probative of whether a verdict is excessive,” and the trial court erred in considering the “relative ratios” of compensatory to punitive damages as a basis for granting remittitur.

There was no debate on the egregiousness of defendant Victor Canchola’s conduct.

Between 1991 and 1997, Canchola was convicted six times of driving while intoxicated and once of driving with a suspended license. In 1996, his driver’s license was revoked. In 2004, he was again convicted of DWI in California.

On the day of the accident in Loudoun County, Canchola had no license and was driving with a blood alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit. At brunch, he drank several glasses of champagne. He and his girlfriend moved on to a nearby pub, where Canchola drank two rounds of his favorite drink combination, a vodka martini and light beer. Later in the afternoon, he and his girlfriend drove to another bar, where he drank at least two rounds of the vodka-light beer concoction and three additional shots of liquor within a short period of time.

Ignoring a police officer’s warning earlier that day that he not drive, Canchola switched seats with his girlfriend in an effort to conceal his driving, and then drank and drove some more. After the accident, he fled the scene and asked his girlfriend to say that she had been driving.

The $100,000 punitive award for Coalson was “reasonably related to her actual damages and to the degree of necessary punishment, which in this case is great,” wrote Supreme Court Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn.

Justice Elizabeth S. McClanahan dissented, saying the majority should have given more weight to the trial judge’s view of the case, which included consideration of the measurement of punishment required for the defendant.

High court precedent on proportionality supported the trial judge’s decision to reduce a punitives award that was nearly 18 times the compensatory damage award, according to the dissent. “If not arbitrary,” the punitives award to Coalson “was based on partiality toward Coalson or prejudice against Canchola,” McClanahan said.

Just as Lester put the “last nail in the coffin” of remittitur for compensatory damages, the majority decision in Coalson showed that “remittitur of punitive damages has suffered the same fate,” McClanahan concluded.

When the trial court looked at reducing the punitive damage award, “one of the major factors is the need to punish,” said Reston lawyer Gobind S. Sethi, who represented Coalson in the appeal. “We’re not saying proportionality is not important, but it’s only one of the factors” for review.

Virginia’s $350,000 cap on punitive damages already functions as a bright-line limit on punitives, according to Sethi. Virginia precedent reflects a range of punitive awards at different ratios to compensatory damage awards.

The $100,000 award in Coalson “is consistent with prior cases” in Virginia, he said.

“You have to look at each case on its own facts” to determine reasonableness, Sethi said.

Fairfax lawyer Steven W. Bancroft, who represented Canchola, could not be reached for comment.