The Interstate 4 construction project in Orlando may have been one of the most accident-plagued sites in Florida history, leading to the deaths of five workers and significant injuries for others, along with damage to vehicles.
But one of those injured workers cannot claim punitive damages, despite his employer hiring a driver with an apparent history of license violations, a Florida appeals court decided last week.
“When a defendant’s negligent actions are so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree that an average member of the community would exclaim, ‘Outrageous!,’ then the law may move beyond merely compensating the plaintiff to penalizing the defendant in the form of punitive damages,” Florida’s 6th District Court of Appeals wrote in the Feb. 27 opinion.
“The trial court found this is such a case. It is not,” the court concluded, overturning a circuit judge in Orange County.
The appeal stemmed from 2020, in the middle of the massive, multi-year I-4 Ultimate project that re-routed and expanded Interstate 4 through one of the busiest metropolitan areas of the state. Stafford Mitchell Jr., a worker for C&C Concrete Pumping, was struck in the back by a pipe that was protruding from a trailer driven by C&C worker Brayan Sagastume Miralda, causing injury to Mitchell’s back, shoulder, arm, head, neck and knee.
The appeals court did not mention it, but Mitchell in 2021 settled a workers’ compensation claim with the Hartford Fire Insurance Co. and the general contractor on the project, Skanska-Granite-Lane, a joint venture known as SGL. Mitchell received a $55,000 lump-sum payment, $13,750 of which went to his attorney, the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims records show. The exclusive remedy was not addressed in the appeal.
Despite the workers’ comp settlement, Mitchell sued C&C and Sagastume, charging negligence and asking for punitive damages from both parties. Mitchell’s attorneys argued that Sagastume had recently moved from New York, where he had a number of driver’s license suspensions and was driving with an expired license when the accident happened.
C&C, with offices in Tampa and Orlando, was negligent in hiring the man and was vicariously and directly liable for punitive damages, Mitchell’s team said. The circuit court agreed and allowed the punitive damages claim to proceed.
But on appeal, the 6th District Court of Appeals found that Florida law usually allows punitive damages only when negligent conduct is considered “willful and wanton.”
“The relevant conduct at issue must be ‘so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree . . . [that] the facts [of the case] to an average member of the community would arouse his resentment against the actor, and lead him to exclaim, ‘Outrageous!’” the court wrote, quoting 2023 and 2024 appeals court rulings. “The relevant conduct here does not meet this stringent standard.”
The court noted that Sagastume’s license had been suspended over administrative issues, such as lapsed insurance. And C&C had not hired him as a driver, initially, but as a mechanic. Further, the court noted, the contention that Sagastume had been at fault in a similar incident two days prior to the Mitchell injury was never proven. The fact that his driver’s license was expired was not relevant.
“A defendant should be punished for the conduct that harmed the plaintiff, not for being an unsavory individual or business,” appeals court Judge Mary Alice Nardella wrote for the panel.
The I-4 Ultimate project lasted from 2015 to 2021. In 2020, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined SGL $53,976 after a worker was struck by a concrete beam, 15 months before Mitchell was injured, according to OSHA information.
Comp-Related: Florida Appeals Court Pulls the Plug on Physician Dispensing in Workers’ Comp
Top photo: I-4 in Orlando (AdobeStock)
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