A.L. Williams & Associates, Inc. v. Williams
| Decision Date | 20 November 1987 |
| Citation | 517 So.2d 596 |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
| Parties | A.L. WILLIAMS & ASSOCIATES, INC. v. John Phillip WILLIAMS, Katherine G. Williams, and William L. Worthington. 85-410. |
James D. Pruett and Howard B. Warren of Pruett, Hudson, Turnbach & Warren, Gadsden, and Gary C. Huckaby, Huntsville, for appellant.
Fulton S. Hamilton of Simpson, Hamilton and Ryan and Robert H. Ford of Brinkley & Ford, Huntsville, for appellees.
John Williams filed suit against A.L. Williams and Associates, Inc. ("ALWA") and William Worthington, on March 28, 1983, because of injuries sustained in an assault upon him by Worthington as an agent of ALWA. The complaint was later amended to include claims for negligence, wanton misconduct, outrageous conduct, interference with business relations, and a loss of consortium count on Katherine Williams's behalf, in addition to the assault claim. The case was tried before a jury, which returned a general verdict in favor of John Williams totaling $500,000 and in favor of Katherine Williams for $1,000 on her loss of consortium claim. The jury denied the cross-claim of ALWA against its agent, William Worthington, and also denied the Williamses' claims directly against Worthington. ALWA filed motions for JNOV or new trial, and to vacate the judgment, based upon the inconsistency of the jury verdicts. The trial court denied these motions and entered judgment on the verdicts, from which ALWA appeals.
In October 1982 John Williams was recruited to sell life insurance for A.L. Williams and Associates, Inc. As an agent for ALWA, John Williams sold insurance written by Massachusetts Indemnity and Life Insurance Company (MILICO), and sold securities of First American National Securities (FANS). ALWA was founded on the premise that investors in whole life insurance could maximize their returns by buying less expensive term life insurance with MILICO and investing the difference in a mutual fund with FANS.
ALWA is a multi-level marketing plan of selling insurance and securities. John Williams joined the business in January 1983 and was quickly promoted for effectively selling insurance and securities and recruiting others to sell under him. In May of that year he was promoted to division manager, and three months later he was promoted to provisional regional vice president.
On December 1, 1983, William Worthington, the regional vice president supervising John Williams, called him into his office. Shortly thereafter, the two men got into a fistfight, the cause of which was never made clear in the record, which landed John Williams in the hospital and William Worthington in jail. John suffered a severe beating at the hands of Worthington, which included being slammed into a brick wall and being kicked about his face and body. Although the record is vague regarding whether John continued to sell for ALWA after this date, it is clear that he was unable to work for a couple of weeks after the fight.
On January 18, 1984, Williams went to the ALWA offices in Atlanta to see about a transfer from supervision by Worthington to a different regional vice president. Williams was not well received in Atlanta and ALWA officers indicated that they would not grant his request for a transfer.
Although John Williams was employed to sell insurance for MILICO, he did so under a contract that granted ALWA the right to request his termination. On February 7, 1984, Worthington wrote a letter to the ALWA office in Atlanta requesting Williams's immediate termination. The letter referred to Williams as "the asshole we've been discussing." The Atlanta office attached a copy of this "filthy letter" to the termination request form it submitted to MILICO. Williams argued in the trial court that these actions, by Worthington and the Atlanta office, constituted outrageous conduct and intentional interference with his business relations with MILICO.
John Williams submitted five counts to the jury, in addition to Katherine's claim for loss of consortium, against both ALWA and Worthington. The appellant, ALWA, submitted a cross-claim against its agent, William Worthington, for indemnity. The jury returned a general verdict of $100,000 compensatory damages and $400,000 punitive damages against ALWA. The jury also returned a verdict of $1,000 against ALWA on Katherine Williams's loss of consortium claim. The fatal inconsistency occurred when the jury also denied the Williamses' claim and ALWA's cross-claim against the assailant, William Worthington.
A finding of liability on the part of Worthington was required for the negligence, wanton misconduct, outrageous conduct, and assault counts. This left the interference with business relations count as the sole basis on which the jury could have returned the verdicts for John Williams and for...
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