Miller v. Phillips

CLEMENS, Senior Judge.

Plaintiff Rita Miller sued defendant Audrey Phillips for assault and battery. The jury awarded plaintiff $5,000 actual and $1,000 punitive damages. Defendant appeals the ensuing judgment.

The trial concerned two encounters between the parties. On the second one defendant admitted a violent, premeditated, unprovoked assault on plaintiff. The court refused to permit defendant to testify that four days before the assault she had found her boyfriend in a motel room with plaintiff.1 We first deal with whether that alleged provocation justified the assault.

The earliest Missouri…