Senior Law Clerk
Punitive damages are one of those things in litigation that everyone talks about, but the pleading rules around them, especially when the defendant is a company or law firm rather than an individual, are worth unpacking. A recent Third District Court of Appeal decision out of Miami-Dade does exactly that, and it is a good reminder that who you name in your complaint matters just as much as what you allege.
The case (Annesser Armenteros, PLLC, et al. v. Caparo et al., 3d DCA 2026) involved a law firm and two of its named partners. One partner, the managing attorney, was the lead on a client matter. The other partner had no involvement in the file whatsoever, but his name inadvertently appeared on a quit claim deed at the center of a fraud claim. The plaintiff sued them both, along with the firm itself, and later moved to amend his counterclaim to assert punitive damages against all three. The trial court granted the motion across the board. The Third DCA took a different view.
The appellate court reversed the punitive damages claim against the individual partner who had nothing to do with the file. The record showed he did not know the client, never spoke to him, never reviewed the deed, and had no involvement in the matter. His name being on the deed was a clerical error by someone else at the firm. No matter how outrageous the underlying conduct might have been, you cannot tag an individual with punitive damages when the evidence shows he had zero participation. That part of the ruling should surprise no one.
The more instructive piece is what the court said about the firm itself. Under Florida law, to assert punitive damages against a corporation or other entity, you cannot simply show that one of the entity’s employees did something wrong and call it a day. There must be a showing of willful and malicious action on the part of a managing agent of that entity. It is a higher bar than just connecting the misconduct to someone with a company email address. The court found that bar was cleared here because the managing partner, the one who actually led the representation and at whose direction the fraudulent deed was prepared, was the firm’s lead partner on the file. His conduct was attributable to the firm in a way that satisfied the statute.
There is a practical lesson buried in that distinction. When you are building a punitive damages claim against a business, you need to trace the conduct back to someone in a position of real authority within that organization, not just any employee. The statute requires that the managing agent participated in, condoned, ratified, or otherwise engaged in the misconduct. If the wrongdoing was committed by someone lower on the org chart, you have to show that leadership knew about it and either blessed it or looked the other way.
The concurring opinion in this case also flagged a point worth keeping in mind at the pleading stage. When a trial court evaluates a motion to amend to add punitive damages, it is supposed to look only at the evidence and proffer submitted by the claimant. The opponent does not get to put counter-evidence in front of the court to defeat the motion at that stage. That is a gatekeeping function, not a mini-trial. Knowing that going in shapes how you build your proffer and what you put in front of the judge.
For litigators in Southwest Florida, this case is a clean illustration of two things that come up regularly: the difference between individual and entity liability for punitive damages, and the importance of who you name. If you are on the plaintiff’s side, be precise about the individuals you include and make sure the record ties their role to the conduct at issue. If you are defending, one of your first moves should be examining whether the named parties actually had any connection to the alleged wrongdoing, because this case shows that connection is not assumed just because someone shares a firm name on a letterhead. Punitive damages claims have a way of changing the entire temperature of litigation. Understanding the rules around asserting them, and defending against them, is worth the investment before you find yourself on either side of that fight.
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