The Pennsylvania Superior Court has upheld the reduction of a $26.6 million verdict awarded to a woman who needed four knee surgeries after taping a promotional video to show the success of her initial knee-replacement procedure.

A three-judge panel consisting of Judges Jack A. Panella, Alice Beck Dubow and Lillian Harris Ransom ruled against defendants Public Communications Inc. and orthopedic medical device manufacturer Zimmer Inc. in their appeal claiming that the reduced verdict of $20.6 million was still too high.

In June 2016, a divided en banc panel of the Superior Court granted the defendants' motion for remittitur in Polett v. Public Communications. The ruling reversed a decision from a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge who denied a motion from Public Communications and Zimmer that sought a reduction of the total $27.6 million awarded to Margo Polett and her husband Daniel Polett, whose $1 million loss of consortium award factored into the overall verdict.

After the ruling, the trial court reduced Margo Polett's award by 25 percent and her husband's by 10 percent. To the defendants' dismay, and despite the reduction, the number remained “conscience-shocking” and “grossly-excessive,” according to Dubow's Dec. 15 opinion.

The defendants claimed an appropriate award would be more to the tune of $1.5 million for Polett and a quarter-million dollars or less for her husband.

“Given our deferential standard of review, appellants' claims fail. We discern no gross abuse of discretion in the trial court's remittitur of the instant verdicts by approximately 25 percent and 10 percent respectively. The trial court's opinion reflects that the court followed the direction of this court … in light of the jury's original verdict, and adjusted the verdict accordingly,” Dubow said.

Troy S. Brown of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, who represents the defendants, did not respond to a request for comment.

Charles “Chip” Becker and Shanin Specter of Kline & Specter, who represent the Poletts, said in a joint statement, “It's been seven years and it's enough already. The verdict should not have been cut to begin with, but it was and we have to live with that. We hope today's decision will close the door on this tragic accident.”

The nine-member en banc panel was split 4-1, with four judges not participating, including state Supreme Court Justices Christine Donohue and David Wecht, who previously ruled on the case while he served on the Superior Court.

The June 2016 ruling marked the third time the Superior Court had tossed out the original verdict in the case, which was handed up in 2010 after trial before Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson.

The award was initially vacated by a three-judge Superior Court panel in March 2013. That panel split 2-1. In December 2013, an en banc panel, which was split 7-2, reached the same conclusion and again vacated the award.

At that point, the Superior Court had ordered a new trial without examining the defendants' remittitur arguments. But, after the Poletts appealed that decision, the Supreme Court reinstated the award, and ordered the lower court to consider the remittitur issue.

On remand, the Superior Court granted the defendants' motion for remittitur.

According to Judge Jacqueline O. Shogan, who wrote the court's memorandum opinion in June 2016, although Polett was entitled to compensatory damages, her injuries, which included, among other things, a patellar fracture, the need to use a walker and an embarrassing scar, were not sufficient to warrant the amount of money awarded.

“Upon review of the record before us in light of the evidence accepted by the jury, we conclude that the $26.6 million jury award of damages to Mrs. Polett was excessive—if not punitive—and 'clearly beyond what the evidence warrants,'” Shogan said in the eight-page opinion. “Under the circumstances unique to this case, the $26.6 million jury award to Mrs. Polett for noneconomic losses deviates substantially from the uncertain limits of what is considered fair and reasonable compensation and, therefore, shocks the sense of justice.”