Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds Steven Sharp verdict.

Steven J. Sharp, for whom ATLA has named an annual public service award, has touched the lives of many who have heard his story. Now, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has validated his tragedy and courtroom triumph by upholding an $8.3 million jury verdict, including $2 million in punitive damages, against the manufacturer of defective farm equipment that tore off both of Sharp's arms up to his elbows. (Sharp v. Case Corp., No. 96-2559, 1999 WL 415368 (Wis. June 23, 1999).)

"This was a slam-dunk win," said Sharp's attorney, Bill Manning of Minneapolis. "It was a unanimous decision written by the chief judge of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and it set the record straight on several points of law.

"The best thing about this case is one courageous young man, courageous beyond comprehension, really made a difference," Manning said. "He extended himself beyond what happened to him. The fact that his case has made a difference is something he can be proud of."

The incident happened in 1992, when Sharp was 17 years old and using an aging tractor manufactured in Wisconsin to bale hay on a farm in Oregon.

Wisconsin's highest court refused to allow the application of an Oregon tort "reform" statute, which would have gutted Sharp's products liability lawsuit, and it refused to disturb a favorable 1975 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision related to "unreasonably dangerous" products and acts of negligence.

The court also upheld Sharp's $2 million punitive damages award, rejecting the manufacturer's attempt to invoke an Oregon law that caps noneconomic damages at $500,000--a law that has since been held to be unconstitutional. [See related story on p. 14.]

Company contentions

Case Corp., which has yet to correct the defect that allows its hay balers to self-start, argued that Oregon's eight-year statute of repose on products liability filings should apply in Sharp's case, which was heard in Wisconsin. The supreme court found that Oregon's law is not applicable to a post-sale warning claim like Sharp's, and, because Wisconsin has no such law, the court noted, no conflicts between the laws of the two states exist.

Case also argued that the jury verdict should have been struck down because the jury found the product was not unreasonably dangerous in a strict products liability sense but that the product was negligently designed.

The company argued that both strict liability and negligent design depend on the existence of a defective product. If the jury finds that a product is not defective under strict products liability, the plaintiff cannot succeed on a negligence claim.

The court rejected Case's contention that the verdict was inconsistent--and the company's implied request that the court make new law by overruling a 1975 Wisconsin Supreme Court precedent set in Greiten v. LaDow. The Greiten court held that a jury that finds a product "not unreasonably dangerous" is not precluded from also finding negligent design.

No new arguments

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote, "Case Corporation does not present new arguments in the debate about Greiten. We recognize that the Restatement (Third) of Torts was published in 1998 and may offer new insights into products liability law, but we decline at this time to reconsider and overrule the long-standing precedent of Greiten."

On the punitive damages issue, the court found that Oregon courts no longer apply the punitives cap law, which the Supreme Court of Oregon on July 15 found to be unconstitutional. The Wisconsin court said it would not apply the law in Sharp's case even if it were still in effect in Oregon.

The court also rejected Case's argument that the lower court erred in submitting the question of punitive damages to the jury in the first place. The supreme court held that Case had acted with the requisite "outrageous" conduct to warrant the damages.

Manning said the upholding of punitive damages "could well impact decisions in other jurisdictions, but [Case] still hasn't fixed the problem. When, not if, another accident happens, what should the next punitive damages award be?"