“A trial court cannot effectively act as a ‘gatekeeper’ without looking at all available record evidence to fully understand the claim it is being asked to permit.”

—Cory Andrews, WLF General Counsel & Vice President of Litigation

Click here to read the brief.

(Washington, DC)—Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today filed an amicus curiae brief with the Florida Supreme Court, urging it to insist on a high evidentiary threshold for trial judges considering amendments to add punitive damages claims. WLF’s brief was prepared with pro bono assistance from Frank Cruz-Alvarez and David M. Menichetti of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.

The appeal arises from a decade-long feud between billionaires Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, former Marvel Entertainment Chairman, and Harold Peerenboom, founder of Mandrake Management, a leading Canadian executive-search firm. When the Perlmutters sought to amend their counterclaims to include punitive damages caused by intentional misconduct by Peerenboom and his associates, the trial court allowed the amendment.

But the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed, deciding that the Perlmutters’ evidence was too “ambiguous” and insufficient to show specific intent to engage in wrongful conduct. The appeals court certified the issue as one of “great public importance,” prompting the Florida Supreme Court to take up the case.

In its amicus brief urging the court to affirm a heightened standard for adding punitive damages claims, WLF argued that such a standard protects defendants from overly broad discovery, like financial-worth inquiries, until a claim is substantiated. To that end, WLF urged the Court to reject petitioners’ contention that trial courts need consider only one side of the story—the claimant’s side—before making this determination. That would virtually guarantee that defendants are subjected to meritless claims for punitive damages that would never have survived had the trial court been able to consider all record evidence. As WLF brief shows, that approach is inconsistent with Florida law and with basic notions of due process.