R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO COMPANY, APPELLANT,
v.
LYANTIE TOWNSEND, AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF FRANK TOWNSEND, APPELLEE

Fla. 1st DCA | 2013-06-13
No. 1D12-3564
LEWIS and MAKAR, JJ., concur.
118 So. 3d 844 Florida District Court of Appeal, First District (2013) Positive Treatment
Cited by 9 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company appeals a $20 million remitted punitive damages judgment in this Engle progeny tobacco case, arguing the trial court erred by denying its request for a new trial on damages and contending the remitted judgment violates federal due process. The appellate court affirms, holding that Reynolds waived its procedural objections by failing to raise them on rehearing from the prior appeal and that the remitted judgment falls within constitutional limits.


Holding

Reynolds waived its procedural objections to the remittitur process by failing to raise them in a motion for rehearing or clarification following Townsend I, and the law of the case doctrine bars consideration of these arguments on appeal. The $20 million remitted judgment does not violate federal due process because the trial court applied a 1.85-to-1 ratio, which falls within the constitutionally permissible range established in Townsend I (between 1-to-1 and 3.7-to-1).


Headnotes

[1] A party waives an argument if it fails to raise the argument on rehearing after an appellate court issues a mandate.

[2] The law of the case doctrine dictates that a lower court must follow the specific legal procedures outlined in an appellate court's mandate.

Previewing 2 of 6 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“Although Appellant is correct that Mora stands for the proposition that any party complaining as to the amount of a proposed remitted judgment is an adverse party with a right to object, here, because Appellant failed to raise this argument on rehearing in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Townsend, 90 So.3d 307 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012) (Townsend I), we are constrained by the principles of waiver and law of the case to affirm.”

Establishes that Reynolds had a right under Mora to object to the remittitur but waived that right by failing to raise it on rehearing.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

This is an Engle progeny case involving the estate of Frank Townsend. In an initial appeal (Townsend I), this court reversed a punitive damages award …

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
THOMAS, J.

THOMAS, J.

In this Engle1 progeny case, Appellant, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, appeals the trial court’s remitted punitive damages judgment of $20 million. Appellant argues that the trial court erred by denying Appellant’s request for a new trial on damages. Appellant contends it was entitled to object to the proposed remitted judgment, as provided by section 768.74(4), Florida Statutes, as interpreted by our supreme court in Waste Management, Inc. v. Mora, 940 So.2d 1105 (Fla.2006). Appellant also argues that the remitted judgment exceeds the maximum amount allowable under federal due process. For the reasons that follow, we affirm as to both of these issues.2

Although Appellant is correct that Mora stands for the proposition that any party complaining as to the amount of a proposed remitted judgment is an adverse party with a right to object, here, because Appellant failed to raise this argument on rehearing in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Townsend, 90 So.3d 307 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012) (Townsend I), we are constrained by the principles of waiver and law of the case to affirm.

In remanding, this court in Townsend I explicitly instructed the trial court as follows:

[W]e reverse and remand the punitive damages award for the limited purpose of permitting Appellee to choose between a new jury trial solely to determine punitive damages or acceptance of a remittitur judgment on the punitive damages award to be established by the trial court.

Id. at at 316 (emphasis added).

Following the plain language of this mandate, the trial court offered only Ap-pellee the opportunity to accept or object to the proposed $20 million remitted judgment. Appellant contended below, as it *846does now, that the proper procedure is to allow both parties to accept or reject the proposed remitted judgment, and absent an agreement, submit the matter to a jury for a new trial on damages, as required by both section 768.74(4) and Mora. It is Mora’s clarity, as well as that of the mandate in Townsend I, however, that precludes our granting the remedy Appellant seeks.

A motion for rehearing on appeal is meant to alert the court to the points of law or fact that, in the opinion of the movant, the court has overlooked or misapprehended in its decision; a motion for clarification is meant to state the points of law or fact that the movant believes are in need of clarification. See Fla. RApp. P. 9.330(a). The relevant portion of Townsend I was an explicit instruction to the trial court to remit and offer Appellee the opportunity to object and ask for a new trial. If this was a legal error, as Appellant now contends, it was Appellant’s responsibility to alert the Townsend I court to this fact, or to request clarification. In moving for rehearing, Appellant did not alert the Townsend I court that its mandate conflicted with Mora, nor did it ask the court to clarify whether it was incorrectly precluding the trial court from considering Appellant’s right to object to a proposed remitted judgment. Thus, Appellant’s argument here was waived under the law of the case doctrine.

“It is the general rule in Florida that all questions of law which have been decided by the highest appellate court become the law of the case which, except in extraordinary circumstances, must be followed in subsequent proceedings, both in the lower and the appellate courts.” Brunner Enterprises, Inc. v. Dep’t of Rev., 452 So.2d 550, 552 (Fla.1984). Appellant argues that the procedure to follow following remand was not at issue in Townsend I, and thus was not a question of law decided by the court in that case, which in turn means the law of the case doctrine does not apply. Even if that is correct, however, this court in Townsend I instructed the trial court to follow a specific legal procedure regarding the remittitur, making it a legal ruling: “[I]t is a well-settled rule of law that ‘the judgment of an appellate court, where it issues a mandate, is a final judgment in the cause and compliance therewith by the lower court is a purely ministerial act.’ ” Brunner Enterprises, 452 So.2d at 552 (quoting O.P. Corp. v. Village of North Palm Beach, 302 So.2d 130, 131 (Fla.1974)). Thus, it was Appellant’s duty to inform this court that it had erred in its procedure, in contradiction to Mora.

Appellant is now asking this court to reverse the trial court for doing exactly what it was instructed to do, without Appellant first alerting this court that the procedure we instructed the trial court to follow was erroneous under Mora. This is precisely the scenario that rule 9.330(a) is meant to address. As we explained in Pensacola Beach Pier, Inc. v. King, 66 So.3d 321, 324 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011), where a court’s error appears for the first time on the face of a final order, the failure to file a motion for rehearing or other available motion in an attempt to correct the error results in the failure to preserve an otherwise meritorious argument. See also Lake Sarasota, Inc. v. Pan. Am. Sur. Co., 140 So.2d 139, 142 (Fla. 2d DCA 1962) (holding “[i]t is the duty and responsibility of the attorneys in a cause to see that the orders entered by the trial court are in proper form and substance....”). Although King and Lake Sarasota, Inc., both concern trial court orders, the same principle applies in the appellate context — a “court should be afforded an opportunity to correct [an] error before the aggrieved party seeks reversal of the order on appeal.” King, 66 So.3d at 324. In essence, *847here, Appellant is seeking a reversal of this court’s previous mandate in this appeal without having previously afforded this court an opportunity to correct its error.

We recognize that “an appellate court has the authority to reconsider a previous ruling that established the law of the case. [But] a change in the law of the case should only be made in those situations where strict adherence to the rule would result in ‘manifest injustice.’ ” Brunner Enterprises, 452 So.2d at 552-53 (quoting Strazzulla v. Hendrick, 177 So.2d 1, 4 (Fla.1965)). One such situation warranting a change in the law of the case, as occurred in Brunner Enterprises, is when there is an intervening case by a higher court that would have required a different outcome. Id. at 553. Here, however, there was no such intervening decision. Indeed, Mora was decided in 2006, or six years before our decision in Townsend I. Although declining to change the law of the case here might result in an erroneous outcome, it was a wholly avoidable one if Appellant had alerted the Townsend I court to its error in depriving Appellant of its statutory right to demand a new trial if the proposed remittitur was unacceptable.

We also reject Appellant’s argument that the $20 million remitted judgment violates federal due process. The trial court used a ratio of 1.85 to 1, which was squarely within the bounds established by Townsend I, in which this court held that a ratio of 1 to 1 was too low, but that a ratio of 3.7 to 1 was too high. 90 So.3d at 315-16. The ratio the trial court used was precisely in the middle of this range. See also R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Martin, 53 So.3d 1060 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010), rev. denied, 67 So.3d 1050 (Fla.2011), rev. denied, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 1794, 182 L.Ed.2d 617 (March 26, 2012) (affirming $25 million punitive damages award). As to Appellant’s contention that the proper benchmark for evaluating the reasonableness of the punitive damages award was the compensatory damages award after reduction for comparative fault, this argument is contrary to Townsend I which, in discussing the constitutional infirmity of the original punitive damages award, and discussing the permissible parameters of such an award, used the unreduced compensatory damages award as the proper benchmark. Townsend I, 90 So.3d at 314-15. Appellant did not challenge this benchmark in its motion for rehearing and, thus, it too became the law of the case.

For these reasons, we AFFIRM the remitted punitive damages award of $20 million.

LEWIS and MAKAR, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Alexander, 123 So. 3d 67 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013)
    …United States Constitution. Townsend, 90 So. 3d at 314 (computing the ratio of punitive to compensatory using the pre-apportionment amount of compensatory damages); Martin, 53 So. 3d at 1071 (same); see, e.g., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Townsend, 118 So. 3d 844, 2013 WL 2631879, 38 Fla. L. Weekly D1320 (Fla. 1st DCA June 13, 2013) (affirming a punitive to compensatory damage ratio of 1.85 to 1); Kayton, 104 So. 3d at 1152 (approving a punitive to compensatory damages award ratio of 2 to 1); Martin, 53 So.…
    1 / 2
  • Philip Morris USA Inc. v. Boatright, 217 So. 3d 166 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017)
    …punitive damages excessive. See Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Alexander, 123 So. 3d 67, 82-83 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013) (upholding punitive damage award of $25 million when the remitted compensatory award was $10 million); R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Townsend, 118 So. 3d 844, 847 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (affirming punitive damages award of $20 million when the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages was 1.85 to 1); cf. Schoeff, 178 So. 3d at 491 (determining that punitive damages award of $30 million fell “on the…
  • Smith v. State, 214 So. 3d 703 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016)
    …t decision is now the law of the case. See Smith, 146 So. 3d at 537; Fla. Dep’t of Transp. v. Juliano, 801 So. 2d 101, 105 (Fla.2001). We nevertheless have the authority to revisit our earlier decision, see R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company v. Townsend, 118 So. 3d 844, 847 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013), but that would not be proper here. Appellant correctly notes that the Florida Supreme Court’s recent decision in State v. Shelley, 176 So. 3d 914, 919 (Fla. 2015), does not allow convictions for solicitation and traveling…

Previewing 3 of 5 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited (11 total)

View all 11 cited authorities →

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw