458
Scalia, J., dissenting
tions for new trials is one that has already been clearly and categorically answered, by our precedents. As we said in Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474 (1935), in discussing the status of remittitur under "the rules of the common law," a doctrine that "has been accepted as the law for more than a hundred years and uniformly applied in the federal courts during that time" and "finds some support in the practice of the English courts prior to the adoption of the Constitution" will not lightly "be reconsidered or disturbed," id., at 484- 485. The time to question whether orders on motions for a new trial were in fact reviewable at common law has long since passed. Cases of this Court reaching back into the early 19th century establish that the Constitution forbids federal appellate courts to "reexamine" a fact found by the jury at trial; and that this prohibition encompasses review of a district court's refusal to set aside a verdict as contrary to the weight of the evidence.
C
The Court, as is its wont of late, all but ignores the relevant history. It acknowledges that federal appellate review of district-court refusals to set aside jury awards as against the weight of the evidence was "once deemed inconsonant with the Seventh Amendment's Reexamination Clause," ante, at 434, but gives no indication of why ever we held that view; and its citation of only one of our cases subscribing to that proposition fails to convey how long and how clearly it was a fixture of federal practice, see ibid. (citing only Lincoln v. Power, 151 U. S. 436 (1894)). That our earlier cases are so poorly recounted is not surprising, however, given the scant analysis devoted to the conclusion that "appellate review for abuse of discretion is reconcilable with the Seventh Amendment," ante, at 435.
No precedent of this Court affirmatively supports that proposition. The cases upon which the Court relies neither
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