Trial News

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled 4-2 that the state’s cap on noneconomic compensatory damages applies to defamation claims. Finding that defamation constitutes an “injury to a person” and is therefore covered by the $250,000 cap on compensatory damages, the court ordered the trial court to reduce the award after a jury found that a woman had been injured by defamation. (Wayt v. DHSC, LLC, 2018 WL 6521443 (Ohio Dec. 7, 2018).)

Ann Wayt, a nurse, was fired from Affinity Medical Center. After her termination, Affinity Medical’s head of nursing sent a complaint to the Ohio Board of Nursing alleging that Wayt had neglected patients. Wayt was unable to find another nursing position, and her union later filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that Affinity Medical had unlawfully terminated Wayt because of her work with the union.

The NLRB ruled in the union’s favor, and the Northern District of Ohio issued an order requiring Affinity Medical to reinstate Wayt and to retract its report to the state nursing board. Wayt suffered continued backlash at work, however, including an incident when another Affinity Medical employee allegedly stated in front of others that the court order “did not mean that Wayt deserved to regain her position or that she was a good nurse.”

Wayt sued Affinity Medical for defamation. A jury found in her favor and awarded approximately $1.5 million in damages: $800,000 in compensatory damages and $750,000 in punitive damages. The defendant moved for the awards to be reduced under the state’s noneconomic damages caps (Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2315.18(B)(2) and §2315.21(D)), which limit damages in tort actions for “injury or loss to person or property.” The trial court ruled that the caps did not apply to defamation awards because those involved “injuries to reputation” not covered by the statute. The defendant appealed, and after an appellate court affirmed, the Ohio Supreme Court accepted review of whether the $250,000 cap on compensatory damages applies to defamation claims.

The state high court reversed, holding that the plain language of the statute encompasses defamation claims and remanding to the trial court to reduce the verdict. In support of this interpretation, the court cited and analyzed Smith v. Buck (162 N.E. 382 (1928)) in which it had previously found that “injuries resulting from slander are plainly personal injuries.”

The court rejected Wayt’s argument that the statute should be interpreted based on the state constitution, which distinguishes between injuries to person and injures to reputation. “While the language in the Constitution appears to draw a distinction . . . that distinction is not consistent with the common meaning of the [statute’s] terms,” which are broader and “more general,” the court wrote.

The court also rejected Wayt’s claim that the legislature’s uncodified statement of intent indicated that it intended to limit damages only in negligence cases—not intentional tort cases such as defamation. The court found that reaching this conclusion would require it to add the word “negligence” to the statute’s references to tort actions, which the court said would be improper.

In a strongly-worded dissent, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor criticized the majority’s reliance on Buck as “misplaced” because the decision—in addition to being dated—does not consider the statute’s actual language. Instead of analyzing the phrase “injury to person,” the Buck court examines the meaning of “personal injury,” which it defines as an injury “relating to a person.” As a result, the dissent claimed, Buck does not support the majority’s position because it established a broader definition than the statute’s clear language. “If we look only at the words in the statute, it is clear that injury or loss to person does not include loss of reputation. . . . [A] person’s reputation is separate from his or her body,” the dissent wrote.

“I’m disappointed by how this decision will affect the law in our state,” said Canton, Ohio, attorney Brian Zimmerman, who represents the plaintiff. “This creates a horrible precedent. One of the most damaging things the decision will do is to immunize intentional bad behavior—now someone who abducts a child, for example, could have his or her civil damages capped, and that goes completely against the purpose of the statute as stated in the Ohio legislature’s notes. In effect, the majority found a very old decision more persuasive than the state constitution, which is the opposite of how the law should be analyzed.”