Heiner

Kmart Corporation (Kmart) timely appeals from a final judgment, entered after a jury trial, by which Kmart was held liable for negligence, battery, and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and ordered to pay compensatory damages totaling $3.8 million to respondent George Heiner, a dentist who was injured in an altercation with a Kmart security guard. Kmart contends that the trial court erred by (1) excluding evidence that Heiner was operating his dental practice in violation of certain provisions of the Business and Professions Code and was, thus, not entitled to certain “lost profits” he claimed at trial; (2) excluding evidence of Heiner’s involvement in other physical and verbal altercations; (3) declining to apply principles of comparative fault to allocate the damages resulting from the battery; and (4) deciding the issue of the security guard’s agency relationship with Kmart as a matter of law. Finding no reversible error in the trial court’s rulings, we will affirm.

I.

Factual and Procedural Background

A. The Underlying Incident.

At approximately 9:00 p.m. on March 11, 1995, Heiner went to the Kmart store in Livermore to return a telephone for a refund.…