General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC, D/b/a General Steel Corporation, a Colorado Limited Liability Corporation…

Summary

The court held that the heightened First Amendment standard for claims challenging petitioning activity does not apply to a private arbitration complaint arising from a private employment dispute, so the trial court properly declined to add that standard to the malicious-prosecution jury instruction. It also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by trebling exemplary damages based on the corporate defendants' willful and wanton litigation conduct that further aggravated the plaintiff's damages. Justice Eid, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have reversed the trebling order because the record did not show actual aggravation of damages and the conduct was not sufficiently willful and wanton.