500
O'Connor, J., dissenting
Court of Appeals of West Virginia, at the same time it recognized Haslip as law, itself warned:
"[W]e understand as well as the next court how to . . . articulate the correct legal principle, and then perversely fit into that principle a set of facts to which the principle obviously does not apply. [All judges] know how to mouth the correct legal rules with ironic solemnity while avoiding those rules' logical consequences." Garnes, supra, at 666, 413 S. E. 2d, at 907 (footnote omitted).
I fear that the Supreme Court of Appeals followed such a course in this case. By affirming the judgment nonetheless, today's decision renders the meaningful appellate review contemplated in Haslip illusory; courts now may disregard the post-trial review required by due process at whim or will, so long as they do not deny its necessity openly or altogether.
IV
As little as 30 years ago, punitive damages awards were "rarely assessed" and usually "small in amount." Ellis, 56 S. Cal. L. Rev., at 2. Recently, however, the frequency and size of such awards have been skyrocketing. One commentator has observed that "hardly a month goes by without a multimillion-dollar punitive damages verdict in a product liability case." Wheeler, A Proposal for Further Common Law Development of the Use of Punitive Damages in Modern Product Liability Litigation, 40 Ala. L. Rev. 919 (1989). And it appears that the upward trajectory continues unabated. See Volz & Fayz, Punitive Damages and the Due Process Clause: The Search for Constitutional Standards, 69 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 459, 462, n. 17 (1992). The increased frequency and size of punitive awards, however, has not been matched by a corresponding expansion of procedural protections or predictability. On the contrary, although some courts have made genuine efforts at reform, many courts
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