The Interstate 4 construction project in Orlando may have been one of the most accident-plagued sites in Florida history, leading to the deaths of five workers and significant injuries for others, along with damage to vehicles.
But one of those injured workers cannot claim punitive damages, despite his employer hiring a driver with an apparent history of license violations, a Florida appeals court decided last week.
“When a defendant’s negligent actions are so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree that an average member of the community would exclaim, ‘Outrageous!,’ then the law may move beyond merely compensating the plaintiff to penalizing the defendant in the form of punitive damages,” Florida’s 6th District Court of Appeals wrote in the Feb. 27 opinion…