“the law in California ha[s] evolved in the area of punitive damages to the point where a finding of defendant’s conscious disregard of the safety or rights of others w[ill] support an award of punitive damages”
How later courts described this case
- “the law in California ha[s] evolved in the area of punitive damages to the point where a finding of defendant’s conscious disregard of the safety or rights of others w[ill] support an award of punitive damages”
- similarly concluding that § 533 does not apply “where an act [is] performed without intent to harm”
- “Nonintentional torts may [ ] form the basis for punitive damages when the conduct constitutes conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others.”
- act is not willful under Sec. 533 if performed without an intent to harm
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. In Taylor v. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal.3d 890 [ 157 Cal.Rptr. 693 , 598 P.2d 854 ], we abandoned an earlier rule (see Gombos v. Ashe (1958) 158 Cal.App.2d 517, 527 [ 322 P.2d 933 ]) which previously had shielded the intoxicated driver from the imposition of punitive damages. We were influenced in large part by the need to deter future misconduct of this kind, in light *165 of the overwhelming statistical evidence of the serious threat to public safety posed by the intoxicated driver. (Taylor, at pp. 897-899.) I continue to believe firmly in the principles expressed in Taylor . Nothing we said there, however, suggested that its new rule should be retroactively (and punitively) imposed upon persons whose misconduct occurred before our decision was announced.
As was recently stated by the Court of Appeal in Mau v. Superior Court (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 875, 881-882 [ 161 Cal.Rptr. 895 ]: “Punitive damages are disfavored. The award of punitive damages as permitted by the Taylor decision is recognized in Taylor as a form of punishment admittedly imposed in an effort to deter persons from driving automobiles after drinking .... This creates then not merely a change in the rule of damages recoverable by a plaintiff but imposes a penalty or punishment on the defendant. Under the idea of fair warning, a law increasing punishment or penalty for prohibited conduct has been universally applied prospectively only. The only justification for punitive damages or punishment is its hoped for deterrent effect on others. Such punishment cannot be justified on any notion of retribution or revenge. Regardless of the merits of the debate of whether the threat of punishment in fact deters antisocial conduct, it clearly cannot have that effect unless the threat exists prior to the commission of the antisocial act.”
The majority, by adopting a rule of retroactive application for Taylor , in my view, carries the deterrence concept to an unfair, indeed punitive, extreme. By retroactively enacting a penal award from persons who, at the time of the tort, could have neither anticipated nor insured against such liability, the majority imposes an horrendous financial burden upon them. I do not see how the imposition of punitive damages can, pursuant to our Taylor rationale, reasonably be said to deter conduct which had already occurred when Taylor was announced.
I would deny the peremptory writ.