On Thursday the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed a $6,925,000 judgment against Franklin Corporation, which is a furniture manufacturer. $5 million of the verdict was for punitive damages. Here is the opinion and the Clarion-Ledger article reporting the decision. The initial Ledger article incorrectly states that the judgment was for $3.76 million. Justice Randolph wrote for the Court, with Justices Graves and Dickinson writing concurring opinions. There was no dissent.
The Circuit Court of Calhoun County (Judge Howorth) rendered the judgment in July 2007. The jury’s verdict was $9.5 million and the trial court reduced the amount to $6.925 million before entering the judgment. The four plaintiffs alleged that they suffered injuries as a result of Franklin’s use of a hazardous glue in its facility and failure to adequately ventilate the facility.
The bulk of the Court’s opinion on appeal dealt with the issue of whether Franklin could be liable outside the workers’ comp. act under the intentional tort exception. The Court sided with the trial court’s determination that there was a fact question for the jury on the claims of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. If the Court had found that workers’ comp. was the exclusive remedy, the plaintiffs would not have been able to recover anything in circuit court.
This will be a controversial decison. Employers are going to hate the decision, since most would have assumed that workers’ comp. would have been the exclusive remedy for the employees. The Supreme Court’s response to that probably would be that they were just applying Mississippi statutory law and that it is the legislature’s job to change the law.