Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415, 35 (1994)

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Cite as: 512 U. S. 415 (1994)

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

cised this authority. See T. Sedgwick, Measure of Damages 707 (5th ed. 1869) (power "very sparingly used").

B

Because Oregon's procedures assure "adequate guidance from the court when the case is tried to a jury," Haslip, 499 U. S., at 18, this Court has no cause to disturb the judgment in this instance, for Honda presses here only a procedural due process claim. True, in a footnote to its petition for certiorari, not repeated in its briefs, Honda attributed to this Court an "assumption that procedural due process requires [judicial] review of both federal substantive due process and state-law excessiveness challenges to the size of an award." Pet. for Cert. 16, n. 10 (emphasis in original). But the assertion regarding "state-law excessiveness challenges" is extraordinary, for this Court has never held that the Due Process Clause requires a State's courts to police jury factfindings to ensure their conformity with state law. See Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Cole, 251 U. S., at 56. And, as earlier observed, see supra, at 438, the plurality opinion in TXO disavowed the suggestion that a defendant has a federal due process right to a correct determination under state law of the "reasonableness" of a punitive damages award. 509 U. S., at 458, n. 24.

Honda further asserted in its certiorari petition footnote:

"Surely . . . due process (not to mention Supremacy Clause principles) requires, at a minimum, that state courts entertain and pass on the federal-law contention that a particular punitive verdict is so grossly excessive as to violate substantive due process. Oregon's refusal to provide even that limited form of review is particularly indefensible." Pet. for Cert. 16, n. 10.

But Honda points to no definitive Oregon pronouncement postdating this Court's precedent-setting decisions in Haslip

449

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