Walter Scott Smith v. Edward A. McNulty

CAMERON, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents the questions whether the awards by the jury in this personal injury suit of $37,500.00 compensatory damages and $20,000.00 punitive damages are excessive as a matter of law. 1 Although initially denying, in his answers to interrogatories, that he had been involved in any collision at all, the appellant, at the opening of the trial, admitted the liability of appellant for compensatory damages. 2

It is undisputed that, at the time of the accident, plaintiff McNulty was driving west on a trunk highway in Collier County, Florida, and defendant-appellant…