A rule change approved by the Florida Supreme Court earlier this month could potentially reduce how often claims for punitive damages are awarded in civil court decisions, according to legal experts.
In a 6-1 opinion on Jan. 6, the justices approved a rule change so that defendants no longer have to wait until a trial court has completed its proceedings before they can challenge plaintiffs who seek punitive damages. Exemplary or punitive damages, which are distinct from actual damages, are typically used by courts to punish defendants’ behaviors that are seen as particularly harmful.
“What the Florida Supreme Court did here was they approved a change in interlocutory rules that will allow the defendant to immediately challenge whether or not the plaintiff can seek punitive damages,” Robert Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Law in Fort Lauderdale, told the Florida Record.
In turn, under the new rule, any time a plaintiff plans to ask for punitive damages, a defendant can effectively stop the proceedings of a trial court until an appeals court decides on the defendant’s request, Jarvis said.
“This will be a way for defendants to drag out lawsuits,” he said.
But insurers and other defendants take a very different view. Often, a plaintiff’s assertion of punitive damages exposes defendants to examinations of their financial worth and makes them vulnerable to large verdicts, they say. Better scrutiny of assertions of punitive damages can help prevent that, according to the National Law Review.
In cases where plaintiffs decide to forgo punitive damages to avoid delays associated with the new rule, there may be less of an incentive for a plaintiff’s attorney to take such cases, Jarvis said.
“The real economic incentive for a lawyer to take the case comes from the possibility to win punitive damages,” he said. “So this is going to make plaintiff’s lawyers wary of taking these kinds of cases.”
Dissenting from the high court’s majority opinion was Justice Jorge Labarga, who said the new rule was “drastic, unnecessary and consequential,” would add to the caseload of appellate courts and lead to stalled justice during the interlocutory appeals.
“Given this additional delay, it is also not unreasonable to anticipate that some claimants in civil cases may reluctantly forgo meritorious claims for punitive damages in order to avoid delay in bringing their cases to a final resolution,” Labarga said in his dissent.