456
Opinion of Stevens, J.
damages upheld against other defendants in the same jurisdiction, (2) awards upheld for similar conduct in other jurisdictions, (3) legislative penalty decisions with respect to similar conduct, and (4) the relationship of prior punitive awards to the associated compensatory awards, Brief for Petitioner 16.21 Under petitioner's proposed framework, when this inquiry demonstrates that an award "exceeds the bounds of contemporary and historical practice by orders of magnitude," id., at 21 (emphasis in original), that award must be struck down as arbitrary and excessive unless there is a "compelling and particularized justification" for an award of such size.22
The parties' desire to formulate a "test" for determining whether a particular punitive award is "grossly excessive" is understandable. Nonetheless, we find neither formulation satisfactory. Under respondents' rational-basis standard, apparently any award that would serve the legitimate state interest in deterring or punishing wrongful conduct, no matter how large, would be acceptable. On the other hand, we reject the premise underlying TXO's invocation of heightened scrutiny. The review of a jury's award for arbitrariness and the review of legislation surely are significantly different. Still, it is not correct to assume that the safeguards in the legislative process have no counterpart in the judicial process. The members of the jury were determined to be impartial before they were allowed to sit, their assessment of damages was the product of collective deliberation based
21 As counsel for petitioner noted at oral argument, these objective criteria in part track the analysis of Justice Powell's opinion for the Court in Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 290-292 (1983). See Tr. of Oral Arg. 26.
22 Applying this "test," TXO concludes (not surprisingly) that the award in this case exceeds prior awards given both within the State of West Virginia and in other jurisdictions in allegedly comparable circumstances, and cannot be defended as rationally related to a state interest in either retribution or deterrence. The punitive award in this case, petitioner contends, is thus supported only by West Virginia's patently illegitimate interest in redistributing wealth away from a large, out-of-state corporation.
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