Roger Slade and Rebecca Newman Casamayor, Haber Law.

A lesson in a reversed and remanded case decided by Florida's Third District Court of Appeal: Consider the limits when seeking damages in contractual disputes.

The case stems from a Norwegian oil executive, Alf Aanonsen, who entered into a contract through a Liberian entity known as KLP Holdings Inc. (Liberia) with Michael Suarez, the trustee of the Mas Family Trust, to purchase all of the trust's interest in an oil trading business known as KLP Industries LLP (Florida).

The trustee sued KLP Holdings and a guarantor in Miami-Dade Circuit Court when KLP Holdings defaulted on the second of two payments.

After obtaining a judgment against KLP Holdings and the guarantor for compensatory amounts due under the purchase agreement, Suarez also sued Aanonsen individually for breach of fiduciary duty in his role as a manager and officer of KLP Industries.

Aanonsen represented himself at the trial of the breach of fiduciary duty claims when the lower court refused to grant him a continuance to hire new counsel when his former counsel withdrew. As a result, at one point, while representing himself, Aanonsen did not respond to a second amended complaint, making the facts "deemed admitted."

Roger Slade, a partner at Haber Law, and an associate at the Miami firm, Rebecca N. Casamayor, represented Aanonsen on appeal.

Amir Ghaeenzadeh, a partner at the Amethyst Law Group in Miami who represented Suarez, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ghaeenzadeh sought punitive damages against Aanonsen for alleged "tortious and reckless acts committed in breach of his fiduciary duty" while acting in a fiduciary capacity, according to court documents.

These acts related to allegations that Aanonsen violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and ethics rules of Petroleos de Venezuela, the government-owned oil company, when he made a payment to a Venezuelan government official, submitted false financial statements for KLP Industries in 2013 to Petroleos, and failed to file a U.S. income tax return for KLP Industries. The result of Aanonsen's conduct was alleged to result in KLP Industries not being able to do business with Petroleos.

Read the Third DCA opinion:

In the lower court opinion, the court stated that the punitive damage award should be severe enough to deter similar offenses, despite Aanonsen filing bankruptcy one month before trial. Because the lower court determined that the wrongful conduct was motivated solely by unreasonable financial gain and unreasonably dangerous conduct, the award was increased to four times the amount of compensatory damages or $2 million, or whatever is greater.

In reversing the lower court opinion, the Third DCA stated that the case reaffirmed the principle that damages arising out of a breach of contract are generally limited to losses that can be measured in money or those that are a legal cause of the breach—absent proof of a separate and independent tort.

The appellate panel stated that no competent evidence of damages in excess of the amount due under the purchase agreement was presented at trial. The Third DCA reversed the lower court and directed that it enter judgment for Aanonsen on the punitive damages claims.

Slade said he was shocked when his new client sent him the punitive damages judgment.

"This case was morphed into something extraordinarily different, and it expanded beyond the scope of any boundaries that anyone anticipated," Slade said. "Plaintiff didn't prove their case. And the judge recognized that in the trial transcript."