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Baker v. National State Bank6/21/2002
appraisal. There was evidence that the other discharged employees were not replaced. Campbell was unable to identify any employees on the riff list besides the plaintiffs who were replaced.
The circumstances here are as egregious as those in RENDINE (phonetic) in which the Court approved punitive damages for two plaintiffs who were discharged from their employment when they sought to return after maternity leave despite defendant's promise that their positions would be available. Here, as in RENDINE, the defendant's conduct was devious and dishonest.
The trial court then discussed the evidence that it viewed to be indicative of the Bank's reprehensible conduct.
In addition to considering the Appellate decision in this regard, the Court finds evidence in support of a conclusion of reprehensibility supported by the fact that plaintiff Baker was blamed for poor conditions which she did not create, that she was terminated after 19 years of service for a younger male who survived only two months at that position. She was subjected to false and insulting allegations and her character and reputation impugned. That in part it was done after the fact in an effort to conceal the true reasons for her termination. That the defendants lied to the plaintiffs in that they were actually told their positions were eliminated, when unlike all the other terminations their positions were not.
When defendant Ahern asked defendant Campbell how to pick the 10 percent for the riff , he was expressly told[,] Baker and Hausleiter have to go. No one else was singled out. The justifications by Campbell, Ahern and the corporate defendant was pretextual. Witness Gervasio was supportive of the plaintiffs but never contacted by Ahern, when he would obviously have been an appropriate person to have contacted.
Ahern and Campbell fabricated poor performance. That was rebutted by Gervasio , Listach (phonetic), and Couch, as well as the plaintiffs and their personnel files. And not only were they false, the defendants knew them to be false.
In discussing reprehensibility in BMW, the Supreme Court noted that it was " erhaps the most important indicium of the reasonableness of a punitive damages award," and identified three "aggravating factors" associated with particularly reprehensible conduct. 517 U.S. at 575-76, 116 S. Ct. at 1599, 134 L. Ed. 2d at 826-27. First, nonviolent crimes were less serious than violent crimes; second, offenses involving "trickery and deceit" were more reprehensible; and third, evidence of repeated, prohibited conduct justified more severe punishment. Id. at 576-77, 116 S. Ct. at 1599, 134 L. Ed. 2d at 826-27. The Court added that purely economic injury could warrant a substantial penalty when the injury was the result of intentional and affirmative misconduct, or when the target was financially vulnerable. Ibid. However, it cautioned that did not mean all acts that cause economic harm were "sufficiently reprehensible to justify a significant sanction in addition to compensatory damages." Ibid.
Thus, in the wake of BMW, one court has stated that the case outlined a "hierarchy of reprehensibility," with acts and threats of violence at the top, "followed by acts taken in reckless disregard for others' health or safety, affirmative acts of trickery and deceit, and finally, acts of omission and mere negligence." Florez v. Delbovo, 939 F. Supp. 1341, 1348-49 (N.D. Ill. 1996).
In that context, it is plain that the Bank's actions do not reach the top of the reprehensibility scale. Its termination of plaintiffs, although discriminatory, was nonviolent and did not involve repeated, prohibited conduct. However, the Bank's acti
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