Alexander v. Alterman Transport Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. EE-43,EE-43
• Citation: 350 So.2d 1128
• Parties: Hooper ALEXANDER, III, as Administrator of the Estate of Margaret M. Alexander, deceased, Petitioner, v. ALTERMAN TRANSPORT LINES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Charles E. Penley, Respondents.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1128

350 So.2d 1128

Hooper ALEXANDER, III, as Administrator of the Estate of Margaret M. Alexander, deceased, Petitioner, v. ALTERMAN TRANSPORT LINES, INC., a Florida corporation, and Charles E. Penley, Respondents.

No. EE-43.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

Oct. 19, 1977.

Joseph D. Farish, Jr., and Alice Cortina Post of Farish & Farish, West Palm Beach, for petitioner.

E. Harper Field and Helen C. Ellis of Keen, O'Kelley & Spitz, Tallahassee, for respondents.

RAWLS, Judge.

With the assistance of this court, petitioner-plaintiff has encountered considerable difficulty in sustaining his allegation seeking to recover punitive damages. For the reasons stated therein, we granted certiorari in a prior consideration of petitioner's complaint ¹ and held that "(t)he bare allegations of gross negligence on the part of an employee in operating an employer's motor vehicle are not sufficient to sustain a claim for punitive damages on the part of an employer." Upon remand, petitioner filed a third amended complaint, alleging therein that by reason of the truck driver's grossly negligent acts of such willful, wanton and outrageous character his employer was liable for punitive damages. An amendment to the third amended complaint was subsequently filed by petitioner alleging that Penley, the driver of Alterman's truck, was operating same in furtherance of the interests of his employer, had been adjudicated guilty of manslaughter, and thus Penley and Alterman were each liable for punitive damages. In dismissing the claim for punitive damages as to Alterman, the trial court cited our prior mandate and Sideris v. Warrington Motor Company, 181 So.2d 650 (Fla. 1st DCA 1966). Due to the prior history of this case, we exercise our discretion to entertain this question through the offices of common law certiorari.

The basic issue is whether or not an employer, pursuant to the doctrine of respondeat superior, is punitively liable for the criminal acts of an employee who was allegedly furthering the interests of his employer.

In the year 1763, the doctrine of punitive damages was articulated by Lord Camden in Huckle v. Money, ² wherein he stated:

"The personal injury done to (the plaintiff) was very small so that if the jury had been confined by their oath . . . perhaps 20 damages would have been thought damages sufficient; but the small injury done to the plaintiff . . . did not appear to the jury in that striking light in which the great point of law touching the liberty of the subject appeared to them at the trial . . . (I) think they have done right in giving exemplary damages. To enter a man's house by virtue of a nameless warrant, in order to procure evidence, is worse than the Spanish Inquisition; a law under which no Englishman would wish to live an hour; it was a most daring attack upon the liberty of the subject."

The foregoing excerpt demonstrates a factual situation in which punitive damages have long been sanctioned by permitting the jury to award punitive, vindictive or exemplary damages to the aggrieved individual not only to recompense the sufferer but to punish the offender.

Of course, Alterman is liable for all compensatory damages resulting from the acts of its employee in operating the company's motor vehicle by reason of its status as employer and the dangerous instrumentality doctrine. But, what wrong did Alterman commit that demanded it be punished? According to the third amended complaint, Alterman's gross negligence was solely the act of operating a trucking business. Not a single allegation is found as to Alterman's negligently failing to investigate or to otherwise verify Penley's ability to operate its truck in a law abiding manner; there is not a single allegation that Alterman knew or should have known...