Cite as: 512 U. S. 415 (1994)
Scalia, J., concurring
exemplary damages is an exercise of state power that must comply with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The common-law practice, the procedures applied by every other State, the strong presumption favoring judicial review that we have applied in other areas of the law, and elementary considerations of justice all support the conclusion that such a decision should not be committed to the unreviewable discretion of a jury.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Oregon Supreme Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court, but a full explanation of why requires that I supplement briefly the description of what has occurred here.
Before the 1910 amendment to Article VII, § 3, of the Oregon Constitution, Oregon courts had developed and were applying common-law standards that limited the size of damages awards. See, e. g., Adcock v. Oregon R. Co., 45 Ore. 173, 179-182, 77 P. 78, 80 (1904) (approving trial court's decision to grant a remittitur because the jury's damages award was excessive); see also Van Lom v. Schneiderman, 187 Ore. 89, 96-98, 112-113, 210 P. 2d 461, 464, 471 (1949). The 1910 amendment, by its terms, did not eliminate those substantive standards but altered the procedures of judicial review: "[N]o fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of this state, unless the court can affirmatively say there is no evidence to support the verdict" (emphasis added). The Oregon courts appear to believe that a state-law "reasonableness" limit upon the amount of punitive damages subsists, but cannot be enforced through the process of judicial review. In Van Lom, for example, the Oregon Supreme Court had no trouble concluding that the damages award was excessive, see 187 Ore., at 91-93, 210 P. 2d, at
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