446
Stevens, J., dissenting
"Thus interpreted, the Seventh Amendment guarantees that suitors in actions at law shall have the benefits of trial of issues of fact by a jury, but it does not prescribe any particular procedure by which these benefits shall be obtained, or forbid any which does not curtail the function of the jury to decide questions of fact as it did before the adoption of the Amendment. It does not restrict the court's control of the jury's verdict, as it had previously been exercised, and it does not confine the trial judge, in determining what issues are for the jury and what for the court, to the particular forms of trial practice in vogue in 1791." Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S., at 490-491.
Because the Framers of the Seventh Amendment evinced no interest in subscribing to every procedural nicety of the notoriously complicated English system, see Henderson, The Background of the Seventh Amendment, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 289, 290 (1966), the common-law practice certainly does not demonstrate that the Reexamination Clause prohibits federal appellate courts from ensuring compliance with state-law limits on jury awards.
Nor does early and intricate English history justify the more limited assertion that federal appellate courts must be limited to a particular, highly deferential standard of excessiveness review. Common-law courts were hesitant to disturb jury awards, but less so in cases in which "a reasonably certain measure of damages is afforded." 1 D. Graham, Law of New Trials in Cases Civil and Criminal 452 (2d ed. 1855); Washington, Damages in Contract at Common Law, 47 L. Q. Rev. 345, 363-364 (1931).
Here, New York has prescribed an objective, legal limitation on damages. If an appellate court may reverse a jury's damages award when its own conscience has been shocked, 66 F. 3d, at 430, or its sense of justice outraged, Dagnello v. Long Island R. Co., 289 F. 2d 797, 802 (CA2 1961); cf. Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U. S., at 422-424 (citing English
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