IN THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS
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No. 03-0974
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v.
Bascom W. Bentley
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On Petition for Review from the
Court of Appeals for the Twelfth District of Texas
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Justice O’Neill did not participate in the decision.
The primary issue in this case is whether the petitioner waived his right to complain that the exemplary damages awarded by the trial court were unconstitutionally excessive. Even though the petitioner did not complain about the exemplary damages until the court of appeals issued its judgment, we conclude that he did not waive that claim. In this case, the court of appeals= judgment reduced the trial court=s award of compensatory damages but left the exemplary damages intact. After the reduction of compensatory damages, the court of appeals had an obligation to review whether the exemplary damages were Areasonable and proportionate to the amount of harm to the plaintiff and to the general damages recovered.@ State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 426 (2003); see also Tatum v. Preston Carter Co., 702 S.W.2d 186, 187‑88 (Tex. 1986). The petitioner=s claim that the exemplary damages were excessive in light of the actual harm thus arose only after the court of appeals reduced the compensatory-damage award. Consequently, we conclude that the claim is not waived, and we remand this case to the court of appeals for reconsideration of the exemplary damages.
This is the second time that this Court has
considered this defamation case. The
case arose in the 1990s, when Joe Ed Bunton, a public-access television host in
Palestine, Texas, repeatedly accused Bascom Bentley
At trial, the court directed a verdict that Bunton=s allegations of corruption and
criminality were defamatory per se, and the jury then found that Bunton had
made those statements with actual malice.
The trial court=s
judgment ordered Bunton to pay Bentley $150,000 for past and future loss of
character and reputation, $7 million for past mental anguish, and $1 million in
exemplary damages. After the court of
appeals initially affirmed the judgment against Bunton, this Court remanded the
case back to the court of appeals Ato
reconsider the excessiveness of the jury=s
award of mental anguish damages against Bunton.@ 94 S.W.3d 561, 607. On remand, the court of appeals concluded
that A[a]n
award of $7,000,000.00 in mental anguish damages is unsupported by the evidence
and is so large as to be contrary to reason,@
and suggested a remittitur that would reduce the mental anguish damages to
$150,000. ___S.W.3d___. The court of appeals did not adjust the
exemplary damages because Bunton Adid
not complain on appeal of the award of exemplary damages.@
We first conclude that there is legally sufficient
evidence to support the court of appeals=
judgment with regard to the compensatory damages. When this case was before this Court for the
first time, a four-judge plurality of the Court held that there was Ano evidence that Bentley suffered
mental anguish damages in the amount of $7 million,@
and remanded the case to the court of appeals to reconsider the mental anguish
damages. 94 S.W.3d
561, 607-08. A majority of the
Court agreed, however, that Bentley had provided legally sufficient evidence of
some amount of mental anguish, stating that A[t]he
record leaves no doubt that Bentley suffered mental anguish.@
Id. at 606; see also id. at
623-24 (Baker, J., dissenting).
A majority of the Court also agreed that A[t]he
other amounts of actual damages found by the jury are well within a range that
the evidence supports.@
Consequently, the only compensatory-damages question before this Court is whether legally sufficient evidence supports a mental anguish award of $150,000. We conclude that it does. As we noted in our prior opinion, there was evidence that Athe ordeal had cost [Bentley] time, deprived him of sleep, caused him embarrassment in the community in which he had spent almost all of his life, disrupted his family, and distressed his children at school,@ and that A[f]riends testified that he had been depressed, that his honor and integrity had been impugned, that his family had suffered, too, adding to his own distress, and that he would never be the same.@ 94 S.W.3d 561, 606-07. We therefore hold that legally sufficient evidence supports the court of appeals= judgment as to the compensatory damages.
Although the court of appeals suggested a
significant remittitur of compensatory damages, it did not reevaluate the
exemplary damages; instead, the court held that Bunton had waived any claim as
to exemplary damages when he failed to Acomplain
on appeal of the award of exemplary damages.@
___S.W.3d___ n.1.
We agree that, ordinarily, an appellant waives any complaint about the
trial court=s
judgment that is not raised in the court of appeals. See Johnson v. Lynaugh, 796 S.W.2d
705, 707 (Tex. 1990);
We have held that exemplary damages must be
reasonably proportionate to compensatory damages, and that adjustment of
compensatory damages therefore requires reevaluation of the factors supporting
an award of exemplary damages. See
Tatum v. Preston Carter Co., 702 S.W.2d 186, 188 (
The United States Constitution similarly requires
an analysis of the relationship between the actual harm suffered and the exemplary
damages awarded. Campbell, 538
U.S. at 416-18. This requirement is
based on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which Aprohibits the imposition of grossly
excessive or arbitrary punishments on a tortfeasor.@ Id.
In order to avoid the imposition of grossly excessive or arbitrary
exemplary damages, the United States Supreme Court requires courts reviewing
exemplary damages to consider three factors: A(1)
the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant=s
misconduct; (2) the disparity between the actual or potential harm suffered by
the plaintiff and the punitive damages award; and (3) the difference between
the punitive damages awarded by the jury and the civil penalties authorized or
imposed in comparable cases.@ Id. at 418 (citing BMW of North
America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 575 (1996)). Each of these factors must be reviewed de
novo to ensure that exemplary damages are not Agrossly
disproportional@ to the
gravity of the defendant=s
conduct. Cooper
Indus. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532
All three factors work together to ensure that
exemplary damages are Areasonable
and proportionate to the amount of harm to the plaintiff and to the general
damages recovered.@ See Campbell, 538 U.S. at 426. These factors are intertwined with each other
and cannot be viewed in isolation; specifically, a reviewing court cannot
conclude that a particular ratio is consistent with due process requirements
unless that court examines the ratio in light of the other factors and in light
of the actual harm to the plaintiff. Id.
at 425-26 (noting that the Constitution=s
Adue process guarantee@ requires the reviewing court to
consider the egregiousness of the defendant=s
act, the actual harm to the plaintiff, and the amount of compensatory damages
awarded in determining whether the ratio is appropriate). Consequently, while the court of appeals
correctly noted that the 3:1 damage ratio in this case is in line with ratios
upheld by the Supreme Court, the analysis cannot end there. Instead, the Aprinciples
set forth in Gore must be implemented with care, to ensure both
reasonableness and proportionality,@
and the analysis must be done Ain
light of the . . . compensatory damages awarded.@
Because the exemplary damages must bear a reasonable relation to the defendant=s conduct and to the actual harm suffered, a claim that the exemplary damages are grossly disproportionate may therefore arise any time the compensatory damages are significantly adjusted. Ideally, the court of appeals should automatically reevaluate exemplary damages whenever compensatory damages are reduced. See Preston Carter Co., 702 S.W.2d at 187‑88. In this case, the court of appeals reduced the mental anguish damages from $7 million to $150,000. Even though Bunton did not initially appeal the award of exemplary damages, we conclude that he is entitled to raise a claim that those damages are excessive in light of the court of appeals= reduction of the compensatory-damage award. We therefore affirm the portion of the court of appeals= judgment dealing with compensatory damages, reverse the portion of the judgment dealing with exemplary damages, and remand this case to the court of appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
OPINION DELIVERED: