"the discretion of the jury in fixing the amount of punitive damages is not beyond supervision by the Court"
How later courts described this case
- "the discretion of the jury in fixing the amount of punitive damages is not beyond supervision by the Court"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FONES, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority opinion in all respects, except the approval of the award of $450,000 punitive damages to plaintiff Florence M. Gordon.
I agree that there was a valid reason for an award of punitive damages to Ms. Gordon, substantially in excess of the award to the corporate plaintiffs. However, in my opinion an award to Ms. Gordon of three times the amount awarded the corporate plaintiffs is the absolute upper limit of the range of reasonableness for a punitive damage award under the facts and circumstances of this case.
I therefore find that award of punitive damages to be excessive and I would reduce it from $450,000 to $300,000. See Smith v. Shelton, 569 S.W.2d 421 (Tenn.1978) wherein we adopted Justice Swep-ston’s dissent in Lambert Brothers v. Larkins, 200 Tenn. 674 , 296 S.W.2d 353 (1955) thereby authorizing this Court to reduce jury verdicts upon a defendant’s appeal, and further to reduce an award approved by both lower courts, where there is no material evidence to sustain it. I find no material evidence to sustain this punitive damage award in excess of $300,000.