Cite as: 518 U. S. 415 (1996)
Syllabus
(c) Nonetheless, when the Second Circuit used § 5501(c) as the standard for federal appellate review, it did not attend to "[a]n essential characteristic of [the federal court] system." Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Elec. Cooperative, Inc., 356 U. S. 525, 537. The Seventh Amendment, which governs proceedings in federal court, but not in state court, bears not only on the allocation of trial functions between judge and jury, the issue in Byrd; it also controls the allocation of authority to review verdicts, the issue of concern here. In keeping with the historic understanding, the Seventh Amendment's Reexamination Clause does not inhibit the authority of trial judges to grant new trials "for any of the reasons for which new trials have heretofore been granted in actions at law in the courts of the United States." Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 59(a). In contrast, appellate review of a federal trial court's denial of a motion to set aside a jury's verdict as excessive is a relatively late, and less secure, development. Such review, once deemed inconsonant with the Seventh Amendment's Reexamination Clause, has not been expressly approved by this Court before today. See, e. g., Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492 U. S. 257, 279, n. 25. Circuit decisions unanimously recognize, however, that appellate review, confined to abuse of discretion, is reconcilable with the Seventh Amendment as a control necessary and proper to the fair administration of justice. The Court now approves this line of decisions. Pp. 431-436. (d) In this case, the principal state and federal interests can be accommodated. New York's dominant interest in having its substantive law guide the allowable damages arising out of a state-law claim for relief can be respected, without disrupting the federal system, once it is recognized that the federal district court is capable of applying the State's "deviates materially" standard. The Court recalls, in this regard, that the "deviates materially" standard serves as the guide to be applied in trial as well as appellate courts in New York. Within the federal system, practical reasons combine with Seventh Amendment constraints to lodge in the district court, not the court of appeals, primary responsibility for application of § 5501(c)'s check. District court applications of the "deviates materially" standard would be subject to appellate review under the standard the Circuits now employ when inadequacy or excessiveness is asserted on appeal: abuse of discretion. Pp. 436-439. (e) It does not appear that the District Court checked the jury's verdict against the relevant New York decisions. Accordingly, the Court vacates the judgment of the Court of Appeals and instructs that court to remand the case to the District Court so that the trial judge, revisiting his ruling on the new trial motion, may test the jury's verdict against CPLR § 5501(c)'s "deviates materially" standard. P. 439. 66 F. 3d 427, vacated and remanded.
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