Kent County Superior Court
DOVER, Del. (Legal Newsline) – The slate is wiped clean for a second Delaware trial after the first included the plaintiff’s lawyer crying and calling the defendants “filth” and a $500,000 punitive damages award – even though only $28 in compensatory damages were issued.
The state Superior Court on Feb. 25 set the stage for a new trial on punitive damages in the case of the late Mark Krieger, whose estate successfully argued AmGuard Insurance Company delayed paying him Workers’ Compensation benefits in bad faith while he was alive.
But the compensation reached in a Kent County Courthouse was only $28 in interest on the delayed payments. Jurors, however, must have been swayed by what the Superior Court called the overzealous representation of Krieger’s estate by lawyer John Spadaro, and handed out a half-million dollars in punitive damages.