462
Opinion of Stevens, J.
While petitioner stresses the shocking disparity between the punitive award and the compensatory award, that shock dissipates when one considers the potential loss to respondents, in terms of reduced or eliminated royalties payments, had petitioner succeeded in its illicit scheme. Thus, even if the actual value of the "potential harm" to respondents is not between $5 million and $8.3 million, but is closer to $4 million, or $2 million, or even $1 million, the disparity between the punitive award and the potential harm does not, in our view, "jar one's constitutional sensibilities." Haslip, 499 U. S., at 18.
In sum, we do not consider the dramatic disparity between the actual damages and the punitive award controlling in a case of this character. On this record, the jury may reasonably have determined that petitioner set out on a malicious and fraudulent course to win back, either in whole or in part, the lucrative stream of royalties that it had ceded to Alliance. The punitive damages award in this case is certainly large, but in light of the amount of money potentially at stake, the bad faith of petitioner, the fact that the scheme employed in this case was part of a larger pattern of fraud, trickery and deceit, and petitioner's wealth,28 we are not persuaded that the award was so "grossly excessive" as to be beyond the power of the State to allow.
IV
TXO also argues that the punitive damages award is the result of a fundamentally unfair procedure because the jury
28 TXO also contends that the admission of evidence of its alleged wrongdoing in other parts of the country, as well as the evidence of its impressive net worth, led the jury to base its award on impermissible passion and prejudice. Brief for Petitioner 22-23. Under well-settled law, however, factors such as these are typically considered in assessing punitive damages. Indeed, the Alabama factors we approved in Haslip included both. See Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U. S. 1, 21-22 (1991) ("(b) . . . the existence and frequency of similar past conduct; . . . (d) the 'financial position' of the defendant").
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