416
Syllabus
(c) There is a dramatic difference between judicial review under the common law and the scope of review available in Oregon. At least since the State Supreme Court definitively construed the 1910 amendment in Van Lom v. Schneiderman, 187 Ore. 89, 210 P. 2d 461, Oregon law has provided no procedure for reducing or setting aside a punitive damages award where the only basis for relief is the amount awarded. No Oregon court for more than half a century has inferred passion or prejudice from the size of a damages award, and no court in more than a decade has even hinted that it might possess the power to do so. If courts had such power, the State Supreme Court would have mentioned it in responding to Honda's arguments in this very case. The review that is provided ensures only that there is evidence to support some punitive damages, not that the evidence supports the amount actually awarded, thus leaving the possibility that a guilty defendant may be unjustly punished. Pp. 426-429. (d) This Court has not hesitated to find proceedings violative of due process where a party has been deprived of a well-established common-law protection against arbitrary and inaccurate adjudication. See, e. g., Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510. Punitive damages pose an acute danger of arbitrary deprivation of property, since jury instructions typically leave the jury with wide discretion in choosing amounts and since evidence of a defendant's net worth creates the potential that juries will use their verdicts to express biases against big businesses. Oregon has removed one of the few procedural safeguards which the common law provided against that danger without providing any substitute procedure and without any indication that the danger has in any way subsided over time. Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 538; International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310, distinguished. Pp. 430-432. (e) The safeguards that Oberg claims Oregon has provided—the limitation of punitive damages to the amount specified in the complaint, the clear and convincing standard of proof, preverdict determination of maximum allowable punitive damages, and detailed jury instructions— do not adequately safeguard against arbitrary awards. Nor does the fact that a jury's arbitrary decision to acquit a defendant charged with a crime is unreviewable offer a historic basis for such discretion in civil cases. The Due Process Clause says nothing about arbitrary grants of freedom, but its whole purpose is to prevent arbitrary deprivations of liberty or property. Pp. 432-435. 316 Ore. 263, 851 P. 2d 1084, reversed and remanded.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Blackmun, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Scalia,
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