446
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Justice Stevens announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice and Justice Blackmun join, and in which Justice Kennedy joins as to Parts I and IV.
In a common-law action for slander of title, respondents obtained a judgment against petitioner for $19,000 in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages. The question we granted certiorari to decide is whether that punitive damages award violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, either because its amount is excessive or because it is the product of an unfair procedure.
drew F. Popper; for the National Association of Securities and Commercial Law Attorneys by Paul F. Bennett, David B. Gold, Kevin P. Roddy, and William S. Lerach; for Public Citizen by Leslie A. Brueckner and David C. Vladeck; for Trial Lawyers for Public Justice by Brent Rosenthal and Arthur H. Bryant; for University Scholars and Law Professors by Michael Rustad; and for the West Virginia Trial Lawyers Association by Mark M. Hager.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Attorney General of Alabama
et al. by the Attorneys General, pro se, for their respective States as follows: Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, Winston Bryant of Arkansas, James H. Evans of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Charles M. Oberly III of Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Robert A. Marks of Hawaii, Larry EchoHawk of Idaho, Bonnie J. Campbell of Iowa, Robert T. Stephan of Kansas, Chris Gorman of Kentucky, Hubert H. Humphrey III of Minnesota, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Robert Abrams of New York, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Lee Fisher of Ohio, Susan Brimer Loving of Oklahoma, Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., of Pennsylvania, T. Travis Medlock of South Carolina, Dan Morales of Texas, and Christine O. Gregoire of Washington; for CBS, Inc., et al. by P. Cameron DeVore, Marshall J. Nelson, and Douglas P. Jacobs; for the Church of Scientology of California by Eric M. Lieberman, Terry Gross, and Michael Lee Hertzberg; and for Phillips Petroleum Co. et al. by Theodore B. Olson, Larry L. Simms, and Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr.
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