Nales v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 79-1542

• Decision Date: 25 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-1542,79-1542
• Parties: Dennis NALES, Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY and Cecil Cronan, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 455

398 So.2d 455

Dennis NALES, Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY and Cecil Cronan, Appellees.

No. 79-1542.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

March 25, 1981.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing May 27, 1981.

David B. Webster, Tampa, for appellant.

George A. McKendree, Miller, McKendree & Somers, Tampa, for appellees.

DANAHY, Judge.

No Florida court has previously addressed the question confronting us in this case, nor have we found, after extensive research, any decision from another jurisdiction or other authority suggesting an answer. The question is whether a person injured in an automobile accident may recover punitive damages even though he is subject to Florida's no-fault law ¹ and does not cross the no-fault "threshold" specified in that law for recovery of compensatory damages for pain and suffering and other noneconomic losses. ² We answer that question in the affirmative.

Plaintiff/appellant (Nales) was injured when a pickup truck driven by defendant/appellee Cecil Cronan (Cronan) crashed into the rear of Nales' automobile, which had stopped at a traffic light. Evidence indicated that Cronan was intoxicated at the time of the accident. Both vehicles were covered vehicles for purposes of Florida's no-fault law.

Nales asserted that he suffered a permanent injury, which would meet one of the threshold requirements under no-fault. ³ He brought this suit for punitive as well as compensatory damages. Over Nales' objection, the trial judge instructed the jury that it must find that Nales suffered a permanent injury in order to award him compensatory damages or punitive damages. The jury returned a verdict for Cronan and Nales appeals. We reverse.

Nales constructs his argument on the initial premise that punitive damages are recoverable in automobile accident cases, and specifically may be awarded where voluntary intoxication is involved. That is indeed the general rule. Ingram v. Pettit, 340 So.2d 922 (Fla.1976); Note, Punitive Damages and Their Possible Application in Automobile Accident Litigation, 46 Va.L.Rev. 1036, 1047 (1960); Annot., 62 A.L.R.2d 813 (1958). Nales advances the additional propositions that there is nothing in the no-fault law of Florida which limits a plaintiff's right to punitive damages; that nothing in Ingram v. Pettit, supra, connects punitive damages to the statutory concept of no-fault; and that an award of compensatory damages is not required to support an award of punitive damages. Nales urges us to agree with his conclusion from these premises that punitive damages are recoverable in an automobile accident case notwithstanding that the plaintiff is subject to Florida's no-fault law and does not meet the statutory threshold criteria. With some added reasoning of our own, we are compelled to agree with that conclusion.

The exemption from tort liability provided in our no-fault law extends to damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience, in those cases where the plaintiff fails to meet the statutory threshold. Lasky v. State Farm Insurance Co., 296 So.2d 9 (Fla.1974). Nales is certainly correct that the law contains no reference to punitive damages in describing the no-fault parameters. It has never contained any such reference except by the addition in 1977 of subsection (4), providing that in an action brought against an automobile liability insurer for damages in excess of its policy limits, no claim for punitive damages shall be allowed. ⁴ That amendment certainly indicates legislative awareness of the doctrine of punitive damages. The legislature must also be presumed to be aware that punitive damages have been specifically recoverable in Florida in automobile accident cases for a number of years. E. g., Jacksonville Frosted Foods, Inc. v. Haigler, 224 So.2d 437 (Fla. 1st DCA 1969). In any event, the Florida no-fault law is a statutory limitation on an injured party's common law right of action in tort and, as such, it must be strictly construed to conform the statute as nearly as possible to the common law, and as so as not to displace the common law any further than is clearly necessary. Snowden v. Sprouse, 375 So.2d 901 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979).

The doctrine of punitive damages is a doctrine of common law. Florida East Coast Railway v. McRoberts, 111 Fla. 278, 149 So. 631 (1933); Note, supra, 46 Va.L.Rev. 1036 (1960). In the McRoberts case, our supreme court described punitive damages as follows:

Punitive damages are damages over and above such sum as will compensate a person for his actual loss. And the law permits their imposition, in proper cases, at the discretion of the jury, not because the party injured is entitled under the law to recover punitive damages as a matter of right, but as punishment to the wrongdoer, for the purpose of deterring him and others committing similar violations of the law from such wrongdoing in the future. Therefore exemplary damages are, as it has been said, allowed by the law, not as a matter of compensation to the injured party, but because of the quality of the wrong done by the tort-feasor, from which the injured party suffers.

(Citation omitted; emphasis added.)

Id. at 280, 149 So. at 632.

The thrust of Cronan's argument is that an award of punitive damages must be supported by an underlying award of compensatory damages and, therefore, if a plaintiff is not entitled to compensatory damages because of his failure to meet the no-fault...