442
Stevens, J., dissenting
bars the procedure followed by the Court of Appeals. There is no merit to that position.
Early cases do state that the Reexamination Clause prohibits appellate review of excessive jury awards, but they do not foreclose the practice altogether. See, e. g., Southern Railway-Carolina Div. v. Bennett, 233 U. S. 80, 87 (1914) ("It may be admitted that if it were true that the excess appeared as [a] matter of law; that if, for instance, the statute fixed a maximum and the verdict exceeded it, a question might arise for this court"); 11 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2820, pp. 207-209 (2d ed. 1995). Indeed, for the last 30 years, we have consistently reserved the question whether the Constitution permits such review, ante, at 434-435, and, in the meantime, every Court of Appeals has agreed that the Seventh Amendment establishes no bar. 11 Wright & Miller § 2820, at 209.
Taking the question to be an open one, I start with certain basic principles. It is well settled that jury verdicts are not binding on either trial judges or appellate courts if they are unauthorized by law. A verdict may be insupportable as a matter of law either because of deficiencies in the evidence or because an award of damages is larger than permitted by law. If an award is excessive as a matter of law—in a diversity case if it is larger than applicable state law permits—a trial judge has a duty to set it aside. A failure to do so is an error of law that the court of appeals has a duty to correct on appeal.
These principles are sufficiently well established that no Seventh Amendment issue would arise if an appellate court ordered a new trial because a jury award exceeded a monetary cap on allowable damages. That New York has chosen to define its legal limit in less mathematical terms does not require a different constitutional conclusion.
New York's limitation requires a legal inquiry that cannot be wholly divorced from the facts, but that quality does not necessarily make the question one for the factfinder rather
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