The Third District Court of Florida recently reversed a trial court’s nonfinal order allowing a Plaintiff to amend her complaint to assert claims for punitive damages after determining the Plaintiff failed to proffer sufficient evidence to support a reasonable basis for recovery of such damages. McLane Foodservice Inc. et al, v. Wool, 49 Fla. L. Weekly D2106a, Fla. 3rd DCA 2024. The Third DCA, in analyzing the statutory framework of Florida Statute Section 768.72(1) and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.190(f), explained “that punitive damages claim will be the exception in civil actions, not the rule.”
In Wool, the Plaintiff, an employee of a fast-food restaurant, moved to amend her Complaint to add claims for punitive damages against both a delivery driver and his employer when she was injured while unstacking boxes of frozen chicken delivered and stacked by the Defendant delivery driver. It was Plaintiff’s position that Defendant delivery driver was grossly negligent for stacking the heavy boxes too high and too precariously and that Defendant employer was vicariously liable for Defendant delivery driver’s actions. In support of her position, Plaintiff proffered an affidavit from her former manager attesting to receiving multiple complaints from other employees regarding the boxes being stacked too high on multiple occasions and to contacting the Defendant employer’s customer service live by both email and telephone to complain about the stacking of the boxes being too high; a computer-generated image of the accident site; and Defendant employer’s employee manual detailing the stacking heights for boxes when such boxes are stacked at the Defendant employer’s own locations prior to delivery.
The Third District Court determined the trial court erred when it determined Plaintiff sufficiently demonstrated a reasonable basis for the recovery of punitive damages and allowed Plaintiff to add claims for punitive damages against each Defendant. In doing so, the appellate court explained the trial court’s threshold analysis requires a determination of whether the proposed amended complaint actually sets forth a claim that the defendants’ conduct was grossly negligent as required by the statute; the trial court’s gatekeeping function does not weigh the evidence or evaluate witness credibility. The Third District Court reasoned the Plaintiff failed to illustrate the Defendant delivery driver acted with intentional misconduct, which would require a showing of a defendant having either actual knowledge of the wrongfulness of the conduct and the high probability that injury or damage to the claimant would result, and despite that knowledge, intentionally pursuing that course of conduct, or that the Defendant acted grossly negligent, meaning the action was so reckless or wanting in care that is constitute a conscious disregard or indifference for the life, safety, or rights of persons exposed to such conduct. The Court explained, simply put, punitive damages are reserved for such conduct that when an average member of the community learns of the facts, their response would lead them to exclaim, “Outrageous!”
As against Defendant employer, Plaintiff further failed to illustrate management was put on notice of the alleged grossly negligent conduct, and knowingly condoned, ratified, or contested to such conduct. Ultimately, the Third District Court held the facts of this case constitute a classic negligence claim, and nothing more. To allow Plaintiff to add a claim for punitive damages in this case would allow any claim for simple negligence to meet the high burden necessary to add a claim for punitive damages. This is not appropriate as punitive damages are a punishment imposed to prevent similar conduct in the future and are not merely compensation for the Plaintiff.