# Dunn v. HOVIC

> Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · July 27, 1993 · 1 F.3d 1371

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6927462

## Case

- **Full name:** William DUNN Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corp. v. HOVIC Amerada Hess Corp. Keene Corporation v. The LITWIN CORPORATION Litwin PanAmerican Corp. Borinquen Insulation Co. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- **Decided:** July 27, 1993
- **Citations:** 1 F.3d 1371; 28 V.I. 467; 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 19482; 1993 WL 280302
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Becker
- **Judges:** Alito, Becker, Cowen, Greenberg, Hutchinson, Lewis, Mansmann, Nygaard, Roth, Scirica, Sloviter, Stapleton, Weis
- **Cited by:** 95 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Modified in part by Dunn v. HOVIC, 13 F.3d 58 (1993).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6927462

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that the “Restatement, which provides the most persuasive evidence of the common law ‘as generally understood and applied in the United States,’ and which we are obliged to consult before exercising whatever common law authority we have in this case, does not preclude s…
- holding that the purpose of Rule 51 is served when objections to the jury charge give the trial judge an opportunity to correct the erroneous charge
- declining to review a jury instruction where the party attacking the instruction failed to make a specific and timely objection which would have afforded the court an opportunity to deliver a curative instruction to the jury

## Opinion text

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Judge Weis has demonstrated powerfully that the repetitive imposition of punitive damages upon Owens-Corning for failure to warn in connection with the same series of acts (the sale of asbestos products) has, in terms of the legal justification, for punitive damages, become so irrational as to offend the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. I therefore join in Part II of his dissent. I note in this regard that the majority’s slicing of the punitive damages award from $2 million to $1 million in a single sentence on the grounds that “the district court gave insufficient consideration to the effects of successive punitive awards in asbestos litigation” is a testament to the force of Judge Weis’s argument.
I do not, however, join in Part I of Judge Weis’s dissent. The majority has convincingly demonstrated why we should not, in the exercise of our powers as the final expositors of Virgin Islands law, declare the repetitive imposition of punitive damages unavailable as a matter of Virgin Islands common law.
I respectfully dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6927462. Public record. Not legal advice.