Amoco Pipeline Co. v. Montgomery

• Decision Date: 17 April 1980
• Docket Number: No. CIV-79-240-W.,CIV-79-240-W.
• Citation: 487 F. Supp. 1268
• Parties: AMOCO PIPELINE COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Jimmy MONTGOMERY, Wilson Lovelace, and Kathy Montgomery, Defendants and Counterclaimants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma

487 F. Supp. 1268

AMOCO PIPELINE COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Jimmy MONTGOMERY, Wilson Lovelace, and Kathy Montgomery, Defendants and Counterclaimants.

No. CIV-79-240-W.

United States District Court, W. D. Oklahoma.

April 17, 1980.

William C. McAlister, and Page Dobson, Rhodes, Hieronymus, Holloway & Wilson, Oklahoma City, for plaintiff.

Larry E. Joplin, Wheatley & Joplin, Yukon, Okl., for defendants and counterclaimants.

ORDER

LEE R. WEST, District Judge.

Plaintiff has filed its objection to the Judgment entered in this case stating that the Judgment is not in conformity with the instructions to the jury or in accordance with law. Specifically, Plaintiff objects to the failure of this Court to reduce the amount of punitive damages awarded the Defendants, Counterclaimants by their percentage of comparative negligence. Defendants, Counterclaimants have filed a response brief in support of the Judgment, which Judgment does reduce the jury award for actual damages but not for punitive damages. Accordingly, Plaintiff's objection is properly before the Court for an adjudication on the merits.

I. QUESTIONS OF FACT

Plaintiff states in its objection that, in accordance with the jury instructions, the verdict rendered by the jury should be reduced both as to actual and punitive damages. The Court acknowledges that the verdict form itself might have specified that under the comparative negligence law of Oklahoma the Court would only reduce an award of actual damages but would leave unaltered any jury award for punitive damages.

Nevertheless, the jury instructions which accompanied the verdict form instructed that actual damages would be reduced by the percentage of negligence of the prevailing party. The only instruction as to punitive damages made no statement about punitive damages being reduced. Moreover, the punitive damages jury instruction stated that the purpose for punitive damages was to set an example and to punish a party that had been guilty of gross negligence. The jury was specifically instructed that, in the instant case, punitive damages were sought by the Defendants, Counterclaimants and that the jury had to find actual damages in their favor before they could award them punitive damages. Based on these instructions, the Court holds that the jury was properly instructed as to the law of actual and punitive damages and that the Judgment entered by the Court is in accordance therewith.

Moreover, any lingering doubt as to the validity of the jury's award of punitive damages is put to rest by the jury instruction that accompanied the verdict form which stated that the jury, in determining the damages figures, "should completely disregard the percentages of negligence they had attached to the respective parties." Thus, the jury, in determining the amount of damages to which Defendants, Counterclaimants were entitled, was on notice that it was to disregard any and all percentages of negligence of the parties. The fact that the Court does not reduce the jury award of punitive damages in no way invalidates their verdict.

II. QUESTIONS OF LAW

A. The Applicable Comparative Negligence Statute

Plaintiff states that the comparative negligence statute to be applied in this case is 23 O.S. (1977) Supp. § 11 (now repealed). The Court would first note that Section 11 was replaced by Sections 13 and 14, which laws became operative on July 1, 1979. 23 O.S. (1979) Supp. §§ 13, 14. The opening clause of Section 13 reads that the Section is to control "in all actions hereafter brought, whether arising before or after the effective date of this act . . . ." Accordingly, this Court's analysis of the comparative law of Oklahoma will revolve around the law as it is currently in force. 23 O.S. (1979) §§ 13, 14.

B. The Comparative Negligence Statute and Gross Negligence or Willful or Wanton Conduct

The first question to be addressed is whether gross negligence and willful and wanton conduct under the Oklahoma comparative negligence statute can be compared with ordinary negligence. The Supreme Court of Nevada in Davies v. Butler, 602 P.2d 605, 609-611 (1979), recently examined its comparative negligence statute and found that the Nevada legislature did not intend to have willful and wanton negligence compared and thereby reduced by contributory negligence which was ordinary or gross negligence. Nevada's statute, 41.141(1), however, reads that "the contributory negligence of the plaintiff shall not bar a recovery if the negligence of the person seeking recovery was not greater than the negligence or gross negligence of the person or persons against whom recovery is sought . . . ." (emphasis added). Thus, the Nevada Supreme Court concluded that the legislature, by including the term "gross negligence" in the comparative negligence statute, made a determination that gross negligence is to be compared with ordinary negligence, but left the law unchanged as to willful or wanton conduct.

The Oklahoma statute, by comparison, states that in actions for negligence, damages will be reduced by the negligence of the person damaged unless the negligence of the person so damaged is of a greater degree than the combined negligence of the person or persons causing the damage. No distinction is made between degrees or kinds of negligence. Thus, the Oklahoma Legislature has made no prima facie distinction between the negligence to be compared.

While the Oklahoma Supreme Court has not yet declared whether ordinary negligence can be compared with gross, willful or wanton conduct, the subject has been addressed by other state courts with similar statutes. In Billingsley v. Westrac Company, 365 F.2d 619, 621-623 (8th Cir. 1966), the Court of Appeals applying Arkansas law, concluded that "willful and wanton" conduct as used by the Arkansas courts, was conduct with a degree of negligence and was not something over and beyond or apart from a negligence concept. Accordingly, the Eighth Circuit in the diversity case held that the negligence of an automobile guest should be compared with the conduct of the host driver, which latter conduct had to constitute willful and wanton disregard for the rights of others under the Arkansas Automobile Guest Statute. As such, the case stands for the proposition that under the Arkansas comparative law statute all forms of negligence are to be compared — whether the negligence can be classified as ordinary, gross, or willful and wanton. The Arkansas legislature, in passing a new comparative fault statute in 1973, gave its approval to this interpretation by specifically including "willful and wanton" conduct as comparable. Woods, Comparative Negligence in Oklahoma — A New Experience, 28 Okl.L.Rev. 1, 13-14 n.92. Wisconsin courts have reached a similar result applying comparative negligence to all forms of negligence, excepting only intentional conduct. Bielski v. Schulze, 16 Wis.2d 1, 114 N.W.2d 105, 113 (1962). The Supreme Court of California has likewise held that all conduct which falls short of being intentional is subject to comparative negligence. Li v. Yellow Cab Company, 13 Cal.3d 804, 119 Cal.Rptr. 858, 873, 532 P.2d 1126, 1241 (1975).

The Court is not unmindful that this interpretation is not of universal acceptance. The Supreme Court of Wyoming, in Danculovich v. Brown, 593 P.2d 187, 192-194 (1979), held that willful and wanton misconduct, in the strict sense, is not negligence. Hence, the Court held that Wyoming's comparative negligence statute, which is similar in form to Oklahoma's law, does not mandate reduction of damages on the basis of comparative negligence of the plaintiff if defendant's misconduct is willful and wanton. Likewise, the Supreme Court of Nevada, in Davies v. Butler, supra, concluded that whereas ordinary and gross negligence differ in degree, willful and wanton conduct differs in kind. To the extent that concepts of willful and wanton misconduct reflect a judgment that the defendant's culpability "is so close to intentional wrongdoing that he should not have the benefit of contributory negligence," the basis for the all-or-nothing rule in regard to willful and wanton conduct remains unchanged by a comparative negligence system. Schwartz, Comparative Negligence, § 5.3, p. 108 (1974). Cf. Li v. Yellow Cab Company of California, supra, (Court acknowledged the argument that comparative negligence concepts should have no application when one of the parties had been guilty of willful and wanton misconduct as the latter conduct was an entirely different kind than ordinary negligence, but was nevertheless persuaded that the loss of deterrent effect that would occur upon application of comparative fault concepts to willful and wanton misconduct as well as ordinary negligence would be slight). See also, Ryan v. Foster & Marshall, Inc., 556 F.2d 460, 465 (9th Cir. 1977) (under Oregon law, plaintiff's...