SANTA FE, N.M. (Legal Newsline) - A $165 million verdict against FedEx over a traffic accident that killed a young mother and her child and left a toddler critically injured was neither excessive nor the result of the jury’s sympathy and passion, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled.
Citing “the value New Mexico’s judiciary places on juries and district courts to determine the value of human life,” the state high court affirmed the jury verdict, reported the largest in New Mexico history, in an opinion published July 12.
Marialy Morga was driving slowly in the right-hand lane of the highway in June 2011 when a truck driven by a contract employee of FedEx slammed into her vehicle from behind at about 65 miles an hour. The truck driver, Marialy and her four-year-old daughter were killed instantly, and toddler Yahir was severely injured.
A jury awarded Marialy’s family $165 million in damages, including $61 million for the death of the four-year-old, $32 million for the death of Marialy, and $32.4 million for the toddler and two other family members. The trial judge recused herself after the verdict over ex parte communications with plaintiff lawyers and a successor judge affirmed the verdict.
FedEx appealed and lost, then petitioned the Supreme Court, arguing the verdict was excessive and the judgment should be subject to a more lenient standard of review than abuse of discretion since the successor judge hadn’t viewed the evidence presented at trial. The Supreme Court refused, saying it was required to review the verdict itself and that was sufficient to protect FedEx’s interests.
The New Mexico standard is whether the damages award “is so grossly out of proportion to the injury received as to shock the conscience.” The valuation of noneconomic damages is an “inexact undertaking at best,” the court said, and best left to juries and trial courts. In this case, the successor judge spent five months reviewing the trial record and expressed familiarity with the details, the court observed.
FedEx argued the $165 million was the largest in New Mexico history and the non-economic damages were excessive compared to the proven economic losses. The company pointed to another case involving a traffic death where the victim’s family only received $3.7 million.
“We are not persuaded,” the Supreme Court said, however. The other case involved a single man with no dependents, and without dismissing the value of his life, the court said Marialy Morga lost “her opportunity to provide parental guidance and counseling to her children and build the life she had planned with her husband.” Another New Mexico jury awarded the family of a 16-year-old killed in a trucking accident $38 million, the court noted as well.
The court also rejected the argument the non-economic damages exceeded a suitable multiple of economic damages, saying it was difficult to compare the two in wrongful-death cases, especially where the victims died instantly and thus couldn’t incur medical expenses.
FedEx also objected to closing arguments by plaintiff lawyers that it was trying to blame the contractor who drove the truck, saying the company was trying to “put it all on the little guy.” FedEx had already agreed it was responsible for any verdict, the company complained, so lawyers were misleading the jury to suggest otherwise. But the situation wasn’t entirely clear, the Supreme Court said. While the plaintiff statements “were unnecessary,” the court said, they weren’t unethical.
Finally, the court said the verdict didn’t reflect “passion or prejudice,” even though the jury far exceeded the $140 million plaintiff lawyers asked for. The plaintiffs were entitled to present graphic photographs of the accident scene, the court went on, including one showing Marialy’s arm that the judge had previously ordered them not to show.
“In reviewing the photograph at issue, we see nothing obviously graphic about the image,” the court said. “While, upon close examination, some bruises and scrapes are visible, the photograph does not show blood or other physical damage to the arm.”