Cite as: 509 U. S. 443 (1993)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
the requirement of proportionality is implicit in the notion of due process. We therefore have held that an award that is "plainly arbitrary and oppressive," Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v. Danaher, 238 U. S. 482, 491 (1915), "grossly excessive," Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), 212 U. S. 86, 111 (1909), or "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable," St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U. S. 63, 66-67 (1919), offends the Due Process Clause and may not stand.
II
The plurality does not retreat today from our prior statements regarding excessive punitive damages awards. Nor does it deny that our prior decisions have a strong basis in historical practice and the common law. On the contrary, it reaffirms our precedents once again, properly rebuffing respondents' attempt to denigrate them as Lochner-era aberra-justly be regarded as compensation" for the harm incurred must be set aside "to prevent injustice"); International & Great Northern R. Co. v. Telephone & Telegraph Co., 69 Tex. 277, 282, 5 S. W. 517, 518 (1887) (Punitive damages "when allowed should be in proportion to the actual damages sustained" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Burkett v. Lanata, 15 La. 337, 339 (1860) (Punitive damages should "be commensurate to the nature of the offence"); Saunders v. Mullen, 66 Iowa 728, 729, 24 N. W. 529 (1885) ("When the actual damages are so small, the amount allowed as exemplary damages should not be so large"); Flannery v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 15 D. C. 111, 125 (1885) (When punitive damages award "is out of all proportion to the injuries received, we feel it our duty to interfere"). See also Leith v. Pope, supra, at 1328, 96 Eng. Rep., at 778 (Court will interfere where damages are "outrageously disproportionate, either to the wrong received, or to the situation and circumstances of either the plaintiff or defendant"); Duberly v. Gunning, 4 Durn. & E., at 657 (Buller, J.) (The Court has the power to order a new trial where "the damages given are enormously disproportionate to the case proved in evidence"); Townsend v. Hughes, 2 Mod. *150, *151, 86 Eng. Rep. 994, 995 (C. P. 1677) (Atkins, J.) (court should "consider whether the [offense] and damages bear any proportion; if not, then the Court ought to lay their hands upon the verdict").
479
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