458
Opinion of Stevens, J.
of permitting juries to rely on a particular factor, such as the defendant's out-of-state status, would violate due process.23
As an analytical approach to assessing a particular award, however, we are skeptical. Thus, while we do not rule out the possibility that the fact that an award is significantly larger than those in apparently similar circumstances might, in a given case, be one of many relevant considerations, we are not prepared to enshrine petitioner's comparative approach in a "test" for assessing the constitutionality of punitive damages awards.
In the end, then, in determining whether a particular award is so "grossly excessive" as to violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Waters-Pierce Oil Co., 212 U. S., at 111, we return to what we said two Terms ago in Haslip: "We need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a mathematical bright line between the constitutionally acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that would fit every case. We can say, however, that [a] general concer[n] of reasonableness . . . properly enter[s] into the constitutional calculus." 499 U. S., at 18. And, to echo Haslip once again, it is with this concern for reasonableness in mind that we turn to petitioner's argument that the punitive award in this case was so "grossly excessive" as to violate the substantive component of the Due Process Clause.24
23 Of course, such a state policy would likely be subject to challenge on other grounds as well.
24 Justice Scalia's assertion notwithstanding, see post, at 471, we do not suggest that a defendant has a substantive due process right to a correct determination of the "reasonableness" of a punitive damages award. As Justice O'Connor points out, state law generally imposes a requirement that punitive damages be "reasonable." See post, at 475- 479. A violation of a state law "reasonableness" requirement would not, however, necessarily establish that the award is so "grossly excessive" as to violate the Federal Constitution. Furthermore, the fact that our cases have recognized for almost a century that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment imposes an outer limit on such an award does not,
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