Illinois Appellate Lawyer Blog

Jerry Slovinski sued James Elliot, the CEO of Slovinski’s former employer, for defamation. Slovinski claimed that disparaging and untrue remarks were made about him by Elliot to one of the company’s suppliers.

A jury awarded Slovinski $81,600 for compensatory damages, and $2 million for punitive damages. The trial court thought the punitive damages verdict was too high, so it remitted it to $1 million. Slovinski appealed the remittitur, but the appellate court lowered the punitive damages verdict even more, to $81,600.

Slovinski appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. He argued that the original $2 million verdict should stand because neither the trial court nor the appellate court stated specific reasons for lowering the verdict.

But the Illinois Supreme Court disagreed, and affirmed the lowered punitive damages verdict of $81,600. The supreme court ruled that neither the trial court nor the appellate court were required to give specific reasons for lowering the verdict. All that mattered was that the trial court record supported the remittitur. Here’s what the supreme court said: “For purposes of our review, it is irrelevant whether the appellate court articulated with sufficient clarity the reasons it had for reaching its decision. The issue for this court is simply whether the appellate court erred in holding that the circuit court should have reduced the jury's award further.”

In the end, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the trial court abused its discretion by lowering the punitive damages verdict to $1 million because there was “no material evidence to support it.” Read the whole opinion, Slovinski v. Elliot, No. 107146 (4/15/10), by clicking here.

In a wrongful death case, plaintiff was awarded $2 million for loss of support and $25 million for loss of society. While the evidence showed a close family relationship, the verdict still shocked the judicial conscience and was ruled to be excessive.

The appellate court decided that remittitur was preferable to a new trial on damages because there were no trial errors and loss of consortium was warranted by the evidence. Rather than reach the new damage figure, the appellate court remanded to the trial court to revise the loss of consortium award. The appellate court gave minimal guidance to the trial court, stating, “[W]e would find it difficult to deem reasonable a loss of society award of more than seven figures in this case and would certainly find unreasonable an award of any more than one-half of the loss of society award settled upon by the jury.”

This opinion contains interesting discussion about the consumer expectations and risk utility tests, and the propriety of various jury instructions. Get the whole opinion, Mikolajczyk v. Ford Motor Co., No. 1-05-3133 (11/22/06), by clicking here.