Jules Massee and Kimberly Hendee won an interlocutory appeal before the Third DCA, obtaining a reversal of the trial court’s non-final order granting a Jones Act seaman’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint to assert a claim for punitive damages against his employer.
Petit-Homme injured the index and long fingers on his non-dominant hand while employed as a seaman aboard a vessel owned by Marshall Milton Corp (“MMC”), resulting in a partial amputation of the index finger. Petit-Homme initially sued MMC for negligence, unseaworthiness, and negligent failure to provide maintenance and cure.
Months into litigation, Petit-Homme moved to amend his complaint to assert a claim for punitive damages alleging that MMC’s failure to provide maintenance and cure was willful, arbitrary, and capricious. Specifically, Petit-Homme asserted that MMC had been “lax” in its investigation of Petit-Homme’s injury and his subsequent medical treatment as to only one of the two injured fingers, and had wrongfully terminated him for retaining counsel and refusing to settle.
MMC opposed the motion, asserting that the record evidence showed Petit-Homme quit and was not wrongfully terminated, that all of Petit-Homme’s medical bills had been paid for up until his physician found him at maximum medical improvement (“MMI”), and any failure to provide payments was a misunderstanding with MMC’s insurance company, not a willful decision by MMC to terminate any benefits. MMC also argued it was entitled to rely on the MMI determination of Petit-Homme’s long finger as he never expressed any issues with or asked for an evaluation of his other injured finger. MMC further showed that neither Petit-Homme nor his counsel had ever identified the amounts of maintenance that were purportedly owed, MMC had paid Petit-Homme an additional $10,000 for living expenses in December of 2022, and MMC had issued an additional payment a year later in an abundance of caution for any back maintenance that might have been owed.
Both parties submitted evidentiary proffers, and the trial court briefly heard argument from both sides before orally granting Petit-Homme’s motion. The trial court then entered a written order, which was devoid of any findings of fact. MMC appealed.
On appeal, MMC argued Petit-Homme’s counsel led the trial court to use the wrong standard in ruling on Petit-Homme’s motion, accepting only Petit-Homme’s proffer as true instead of weighing both parties’ proffers and making the required affirmative findings. MMC argued that had the trial court utilized the proper standard and acted as a gatekeeper in weighing the evidentiary proffers, it would have found Petit-Homme did not meet the threshold necessary to assert a claim for punitive damages because there was no record evidence MMC acted in bad faith.
Upon de novo review of the record and briefs from both parties, and without oral argument, the Third DCA sided with MMC, finding Petit-Homme failed to provide reasonable evidence of willful, callous, or egregious conduct by MMC. The Third DCA reversed the trial court’s order granting Petit-Homme’s motion for leave to amend to add a claim for punitive damages and remanded for further proceedings.
