## Facts

- Nathaniel Dupont was an independent truck owner-operator who went to Limerock Industries’ Cabbage Grove mine to pick up a load of limerock.
- While waiting, Dupont left his tractor-trailer running and stepped between the cab and trailer to do minor repair work.
- A Limerock employee operated a CAT 988 front-end loader owned by White Construction Company and used at the mine.
- The loader backed around a large limerock pile toward Dupont’s trailer at a high rate of speed and struck the rear of the trailer.
- The impact caused the trailer to surge forward and run over Dupont, causing catastrophic injuries and permanent disability.
- Dupont and his wife, Janey Dupont, sued White and Limerock for compensatory damages; the complaint also sought punitive damages, and Mrs. Dupont sought damages for loss of consortium.
- At trial, Mrs. Dupont testified that after the accident her husband could no longer perform household chores and domestic tasks he previously did.
- Mrs. Dupont did not present evidence of the reasonable value of Mr. Dupont’s household services or the cost of hiring replacement services.
- The jury found for the Duponts and returned substantial verdicts, including a $1,025,000 award to Mrs. Dupont for loss of consortium that reflected lost support, lost household services, and marital harms such as companionship and affection.
- White and Limerock appealed, challenging, among other things, the size and evidentiary support for the consortium award.

## Issues

1. Whether a $1,025,000 loss-of-consortium award is excessive and unsupported when the plaintiff offers no evidence of the monetary value of the injured spouse’s lost household services.
2. If the consortium award is excessive, whether the proper remedy is a damages-only proceeding on that claim rather than a retrial on liability and the other awards.

## Decision

- The First District Court of Appeal held that the $1,025,000 consortium award could not stand on the record presented because the verdict was excessive in light of the proof, particularly the lack of evidence placing a dollar value on the claimed loss of household services.
- The court directed corrective action focused on Mrs. Dupont’s consortium damages (through reduction/remittitur or a new trial limited to that damages issue), while leaving the remaining determinations intact to the extent they were not affected by the consortium-damages error.

## Legal Principles

- A spouse’s loss-of-consortium claim may include non-economic harms (loss of companionship, affection, and sexual relations) and may also involve economic components (loss of support and loss of household services).
- When a consortium claim seeks recovery for the economic value of lost household services, the record must supply a reasonable basis for valuing those services (such as evidence of reasonable value or replacement cost); otherwise, large awards risk resting on speculation.
- An appellate court may correct an excessive verdict by ordering a remittitur or, if appropriate, a new trial limited to the separable issue of damages, when liability and other awards are not tainted by the error.

## Conclusion

In *White Construction Company v. Dupont*, the Florida First District Court of Appeal concluded that the jury’s $1,025,000 award to Janey Dupont for loss of consortium was excessive on the evidence presented because she offered no proof from which the jury could reasonably assign a monetary value to the claimed loss of her husband’s household services; the court therefore required a reduction of that award or a retrial limited to the amount of consortium damages.


White Construction Company v. Dupont, 430 So. 2d 915 (1983)