Ashmore v. Hartford Hospital

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ASHMORE v. HARTFORD HOSPITAL—CONCURRENCE
McDONALD, J., concurring. In Munn v. Hotchkiss
School, 326 Conn. 540, 569–79, 165 A.3d 1167 (2017),
this court determined that the trial court had not abused
its discretion in denying a motion for remittitur of a
damages award of approximately $41.5 million, $31.5
million of which were noneconomic damages. I wrote
separately in that case to express my concern that our
remittitur jurisprudence is internally inconsistent and
fails to provide clear guidance as to the point at which
a verdict should be deemed excessive. See id., 579–88
(McDonald, J., concurring). I emphasized that the lack
of objective guideposts for the review of noneconomic
damages presented a particularly vexing problem and
suggested that the legislature would be best suited to
remedy this concern. As of yet, the legislature has taken
no remedial action, leaving this court to fill the void.
The present case is a prime example of how objective
guideposts result in more logical, consistent outcomes.
By adopting the common sense presumption that a loss
of consortium award ordinarily should not substantially
exceed the corresponding wrongful death award to the
directly injured spouse, this court was able to limit its
review to considering whether the evidence demon-
strated exceptional or unusual circumstances to justify
a loss of consortium award almost four times as great
as the wrongful death award. After we applied this
standard, the result was clear.
I join the majority opinion but write separately to
note that, under the current state of our law, the unpre-
dictability of noneconomic damages awards will con-
tinue to exist in other circumstances. It appears that
the abuse of discretion standard of review that we
utilize to consider whether a trial court’s order as to
whether a verdict is excessive as a matter of law will
remain a legal oxymoron in our jurisprudence unless
and until the legislature clarifies its intent in General
Statutes § 52-216a. Without restating it here, I continue
to maintain my view on the subject as articulated in
Munn.