Rosener

*746 Opinion

The present appeal is from judgments after jury trial in favor of respondents and against appellant Sears, Roebuck & Company aggregating $158,000 in compensatory and $10 million in punitive damages.

It is unnecessary to engage in an exhaustive analysis of the voluminous evidentiary record compiled during the 36-day trial. Viewing that record in a light favorable to the judgment below, the following salient facts are disclosed.

In June 1970, Sears, Roebuck actively promoted a national campaign called “Sears Add-A-Room,” using license agreements with improvement contractors under which Sears received payment based upon 10 percent of the gross contract price between the licensed contractor and the homeowner. United Remodeling Systems, Inc. (URS) was licensed by Sears to provide such services in California, utilizing the nationally recognized Sears logo, together with a performance bond guaranty under a collateral suretyship arrangement with Commercial Standard Insurance Company (CSI).

During 1972, United States Financial Corporation (USFC) initiated efforts to acquire URS, and, with Sears’ approval, assumed active management of its Add-A-Room program operations.

In…

I concur in the opinion of my respected colleagues for I find in it no error. I, as they, believe that the reduced $2.5 million punitive damage award is authorized by existing law.

I likewise concur in their view that the reprehensible conduct of defendant Sears, Roebuck & Company in this case is deserving of stern retribution. But I do not believe California’s legislative and judicial authority to be so barren of remedial resources that retribution may be accomplished only by giving to plaintiffs a windfall, to which they concededly have no right, of more than 15 times their total compensatory damages as found by the jury.

I am fearful that the law of punitive damages as it has developed in this state no longer serves any public policy, or the legitimate interests of the unentitled recipients of its constantly accelerating largess.

I therefore express my views on the subject because of the state’s announced policy that this court’s criticism of existing law be brought to the attention of the public, and of legislative and higher judicial authority empowered to change it. (See rule 976(b), Cal. Rules of Court.)

No person, regardless of how grievous the circumstances, has a…