holding that plaintiffs must present meaningful evidence of a defendant’s financial condition in part because courts must review punitive damages awards for excessiveness, and an “award can be so disproportionate to the defendant’s ability to pay that the award is excessive for that reason alone ”
How later courts described this case
- holding that plaintiffs must present meaningful evidence of a defendant’s financial condition in part because courts must review punitive damages awards for excessiveness, and an “award can be so disproportionate to the defendant’s ability to pay that the award is excessive for that reason alone ”
- recognizing “the profitability of the defendant’s misconduct” as one measure of the ability to pay punitive damages
- noting that “absent financial evidence, a jury will 19 be encouraged (indeed, required) to speculate as to a defendant’s net worth in seeking to return a 20 verdict that will appropriately punish the defendant”
- holding that evidence of a defendant’s financial condition is a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Declined to follow by People v. First Federal Credit Corp., 104 Cal. App. 4th 721 (2002)
For all these reasons, we reject defendants’ attempt to extend the requirements of Murakami to civil penalties under sections 17206 and 17536.5
The opinion
KENNARD, J.
Concurring. I concur in the judgment. I agree that evidence of a defendant’s financial condition is a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages, and that the burden is on the plaintiff to introduce such evidence.
In my view, however, we should not address any constitutional questions in this case. I write separately, therefore, to emphasize that I do not join in the majority’s unnecessary discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip (1991) 499 U.S. _ [ 113 L.Ed.2d 1 , 111 S.Ct. 1032 ],
California courts have long adhered to the policy that constitutional questions ordinarily should be reached only if the matter at hand cannot otherwise reasonably be resolved. (Estate of Johnson (1903) 139 Cal. 532, 534 [ 73 P. 424 ]; accord, e.g., People v. Stankewitz (1990) 51 Cal.3d 72, 90 [ 270 Cal.Rptr. 817 , 793 P.2d 23 ].) Because the power of the courts to declare a law or practice unconstitutional is an “ultimate power,” resort to decision on constitutional grounds when other bases for decision are present generally should be avoided in the exercise of appropriate judicial self-restraint. (E.g., Syrek v. California Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd. (1960) 54 Cal.2d 519, 526 [ 7 Cal.Rptr. 97 , 354 P.2d 625 ].) This prudent judicial policy also counsels against judicial explications of constitutional issues that do not amount to separate bases for decision.
The majority’s discussion of the nonconstitutional grounds for holding that a plaintiff must introduce evidence of a defendant’s financial condition as a prerequisite to an award of punitive damages adequately resolves the issue here. Any analysis by this court of the effect of Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, supra, 499 U.S._, on California law should await a case in which that decision’s constitutional ramifications for California law are plainly at issue, and have been raised, briefed and determined in the trial and appellate courts.