Fending off an intense and harsh dissent, a divided Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for victims of drunken drivers to collect punitive damages.
The ruling came in a case where a 3rd District Court jury awarded $10,300 in compensatory damages and $25,000 in punitive damages to a teenage driver who was injured in a collision caused by a drunken driver.Scott R. Johnson moved to strike the damage awards against him, arguing that the teenager, identified only as C.T., wasn't entitled to compensatory damages because he hadn't met the threshold requirements of no-fault insurance.
And his lawyers further argued that under Utah law, punitive damages can only be awarded if compensatory or general damages are awarded.
In a 3-2 decision, the Utah Supreme Court agreed that the trial court erred in awarding C.T. compensatory damages. However, the three justices said their reading of state law allows the awarding of punitive damages in such lawsuits regardless of whether any actual damages were sustained by the victim.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Richard Howe said that in enacting the contested law, the Legislature was "cracking down" on intoxicated drivers. Lawmakers concluded that driving drunk amounts to conduct that is "sufficiently reckless to justify the awarding of punitive damages," Howe said.
"The Legislature also concluded that punitive damage awards were a rational and reasonable method of deterring people from driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs," the chief justice wrote.
In a strongly worded dissent, Justices Michael Zimmerman and Leonard Russon called the majority opinion a "fundamental break with our established punitive damage law."
Zimmerman said that under the majority's interpretation, a plaintiff seeking punitive damages would only have to show that he was injured -- but not necessarily damaged -- by a defendant who was operating a vehicle while voluntarily intoxicated.
Also, he said, "Whatever the majority's personal views of driving under the influence, under Utah case law that conduct alone is mere negligence."
By awarding punitive damages where no actual damages were awarded, the three justices have "jettisoned normal rules of statutory construction, ignored our prior precedent and raised potentially serious due process questions about the excessiveness of punitive damage awards," Zimmerman said.
The ruling "blithely ignores" case law and fundamentally reshapes Utah's DUI and punitive damage laws, he added.
According to Zimmerman, the majority's decision can only be explained "by the fact that alcohol is involved."
He wrote, "Whatever the evils of drunk driving -- and there are many -- such a fundamental change in Utah's law of punitive damages should be left to explicit action of the Legislature."