Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/492/257
Timestamp: 2013-05-24 08:04:44
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 9', 'arta 285', 'arta 2', '§ 37', '§ 37', '§ 37']

BROWNING-FERRIS INDUSTRIES OF VERMONT, INC., et al., Petitioners v. KELCO DISPOSAL, INC., et al. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
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492 U.S. 257 (109 S.Ct. 2909, 106 L.Ed.2d 219)
[HTML] conc_diss, O'CONNOR, STEVENS
[HTML] Syllabus Respondents Joseph Kelley and Kelco Disposal, Inc., filed suit against petitioners (collectively BFI) in Federal District Court, charging BFI with antitrust violations and with interfering with Kelco's contractual relations in violation of Vermont tort law. A jury found BFI liable on both counts, and awarded Kelco, in addition to $51,146 in compensatory damages, $6 million in punitive damages on the state-law claim. Denying BFI's post-trial motions, the District Court upheld the jury's punitive damages award. The Court of Appeals affirmed as to both liability and damages, holding that even if the Eighth Amendment were applicable, the punitive damages awarded were not so disproportionate as to be constitutionally excessive.
Held: 1. The Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to punitive damages awards in cases between private parties; it does not constrain such an award when the government neither has prosecuted the action nor has any right to recover a share of the damages awarded. Pp. 262-276.
* These weighty questions of constitutional law arise from an unlikely source: the waste-disposal business in Burlington, Vt. Petitioner Browning-Ferris Industries of Vermont, Inc., is a subsidiary of petitioner Browning-Ferris Industries, Inc. (collectively, BFI), which operates a nationwide ommercial waste-collection and disposal business. In 1973 BFI entered the Burlington area trash-collection market, and in 1976 began to offer roll-off collection services.
Until 1980 BFI was the sole provider of such services in the Burlington area; that year respondent Joseph Kelley, who, since 1973, had been BFI's local district manager, went into business for himself, starting respondent Kelco Disposal, Inc. Within a year Kelco obtained nearly 40% of the Burlington roll-off market, and by 1982 Kelco's market share had risen to 43%. During 1982 BFI reacted by attempting to drive Kelco out of business, first by offering to buy Kelco and then by cutting prices by 40% or more on new business for approximately six months. The orders given to the Burlington BFI office by its regional vice president were clear: "Put Kelley out of business. Do whatever it takes. Squish him like a bug." App. 10. BFI's Burlington salesman was also instructed to put Kelco out of business and told that if "it meant give the stuff away, give it away." Ibid.
In 1984, Kelco and Kelley brought an action in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont, alleging a violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act for attempts to monopolize the Burlington roll-off market. They also claimed that BFI had interfered with Kelco's contractual relations in violation of Vermont tort law. Kelley's claims were severed from Kelco's, and Kelco's antitrust and tort claims were tried to a jury. After a 6-day trial BFI was found liable on both counts. A 1-day trial on damages followed, at which Kelco submitted evidence regarding the revenues and profits it lost as a result of BFI's predatory prices. Kelco's attorney urged the jury to return an award of punitive damages, asking the jurors to "deliver a message to Houston BFI's headquarters." Id., at 53. Kelco also stressed BFI's total revenues of $1.3 billion in the previous year, noting that this figure broke down to $25 million a week. BFI urged that punitive damages were not appropriate, but made no argument as to amount.
The Eighth Amendment reads: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Although this Court has never considered an application of the Excessive Fines Clause, it has interpreted the Amendment in its entirety in a way which suggests that the Clause does not apply to a civil-jury award of punitive damages. Given that the Amendment is addressed to bail, fines, and punishments, our cases long have understood it to apply primarily, and perhaps exclusively, to criminal prosecutions and punishments. See, e.g., Ex parte Watkins, 7 Pet. 568, 573-574, 8 L.Ed. 786 (1833) ("The eighth amendmentis addressed to courts of the United States exercising criminal jurisdiction"); Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 730, 13 S.Ct. 1016, 1028, 37 L.Ed. 905 (1893) (Amendment inapplicable to deportation because deportation is not punishment for a crime); Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 664-668, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 1408-1411, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977). "Bail, fines, and punishment traditionally have been associated with the criminal process, and by subjecting the three to parallel limitations the text of the Amendment suggests an intention to limit the power of those entrusted with the criminal-law function of government." Id., at 664, 97 S.Ct., at 1408.
To decide the instant case, however, we eed not go so far as to hold that the Excessive Fines Clause applies just to criminal cases. Whatever the outer confines of the Clause's reach may be, we now decide only that it does not constrain an award of money damages in a civil suit when the government neither has prosecuted the action nor has any right to receive a share of the damages awarded. To hold otherwise, we believe, would be to ignore the purposes and concerns of the Amendment, as illuminated by its history.
The Eighth Amendment received little debate in the First Congress, see Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 368, 30 S.Ct. 544, 549, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910), and the Excessive Fines Clause received even less attention. This is not surprising; at least eight of the original States which ratified the Constitution had some equivalent of the Excessive Fines Clause in their respective Declarations of Rights or State Constitutions,
so the matter was not a likely source of controversy or extensive discussion. Although the prohibition of excessive fines was mentioned as part of a complaint that the Amendment was unnecessary and imprecise, see 217 U.S., at 369, 30 S.Ct., at 550, Congress did not discuss what was meant by the term "fines," or whether the prohibition had any application in the civil context. In the absence of direct evidence of Congress' intended meaning, we think it significant that at the time of the drafting and ratification of the Amendment, the word "fine" was understood to mean a payment to a sovereign as punishment for some offense.
Moreover, specific and persuasive support for our reading of the Excessive Fines Clause comes from the pedigree of the Clause itself. As we have noted in other cases, it is clear that the Eighth Amendment was "based directly on Art. I, § 9, of the Virginia Declaration of Rights," which "adopted verbatim the language of the English Bill of Rights." Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 285, n. 10, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 3007, n. 10, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983). Section 10 of the English Bill of Rights of 1689, like our Eighth Amendment, states that "excessive Bail ought not to be required, nor excessive Fines imposed; nor cruel and unusual Punishments inflicted." 1 Wm. & Mary, 2d Sess., ch. 2, 3 Stat. at Large 440, 441 (1689). We recounted in Ingraham, 430 U.S., at 664, 97 S.Ct., at 1408: "The English version, adopted after the accession of William and Mary, was intended to curb the excesses of English judges under the reign of James II." During the reigns of the Stuarts the King's judges had imposed heavy fines on the King's enemies, much as the Star Chamber had done before its abolition in 1641. L. Schwoerer, The Declaration of Rights, 1689, p. 91 (1981). In the 1680's the use of fines "became even more excessive and partisan," and some opponents of the King were forced to remain in prison because they could not pay the huge monetary penaltie that had been assessed. Ibid.
seems to us clear support for reading our Excessive Fines Clause as limiting the ability of the sovereign to use its prosecutorial power, including the power to collect fines, for improper ends. Providing even clearer support for this view is the English case law, immediately prior to the enactment of the English Bill of Rights, which stressed the difference between civil damages and criminal fines. See Lord Townsend v. Hughes, 2 Mod. 150, 86 Eng.Rep. 994 (C.P.1677). In short, nothing in English history suggests that the Excessive Fines Clause of the 1689 Bill of Rights, the direct ancestor of our Eighth Amendment, was intended to apply to damages awarded in disputes between private parties. Instead, the history of the Eighth Amendment convinces us that the Excessive Fines Clause was intended to limit only those fines directly imposed by, and payable to, the government.
Amercements were payments to the Crown, and were required of individuals who were "in the King's mercy," because of some act offensive to the Crown. Those acts ranged from what we today would consider minor criminal offenses, such as breach of the King's peace with force and arms, to "civil" wrongs against the King, such as infringing "a final concord" made in the King's court. § e 2 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, History of English Law 519 (2d ed. 1905) (Pollock & Maitland); see also Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S., at 284, n. 8, 103 S.Ct., at 3006, n. 8 (an amercement "was the most common criminal sanction in 13th-century England"); W. McKechnie, Magna Carta 285-286 (2d ed. 1958) (McKechnie) (discussing amercements as a step in the development of criminal law). Amercements were an "all-purpose" royal penalty; they were used not only against plaintiffs who failed to follow the complex rules of pleading
The use of amercements was widespread; one commentary has said that most men in England could expect to be amerced at least once a year. See 2 Pollock & Maitland 513.
The barons who forced John to agree to Magna Carta sought to reduce arbitrary royal power, and in particular to limit the King's use of amercements as a source of royal revenue, and as a weapon against enemies of the Crown.
The Amercements Clause of Magna Carta limited these abuses in four ways: by requiring that one be amerced only for some genuine harm to the Crown; by requiring that the amount of the amercement be proportioned to the wrong; by requiring that the amercement not be so larg as to deprive him of his livelihood; and by requiring that the amount of the amercement be fixed by one's peers, sworn to amerce only in a proportionate amount.
find in this history a basis for concluding that the Excessive Fines Clause operates to limit the ability of a civil jury to award punitive damages. We do not agree. Whatever uncertainties surround the use of amercements prior to Magna Carta, the compact signed at Runnymede was aimed at putting limits on the power of the King, on the "tyrannical extortions, under the name of amercements, with which John had oppressed his people," T. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History 83 (T. Plucknett 10th ed. 1946), whether that power be exercised for purposes of oppressing political opponents, for raising revenue in unfair ways, or for any other improper use. See 2 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 214 (4th ed. 1936). These concerns are clearly inapposite in a case where a private party receives exemplary damages from another party, and the government has no share in the recovery. Cf. United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989) (Double Jeopardy Clause).
Petitioners ultimately rely on little more than the fact that the distinction between civil and criminal law was cloudy (and perhaps nonexistent) at the time of Magna Carta. But any overlap between civil and criminal procedure at that time does nothing to support petitioners' case, when all the indications are that English courts never have understood the amer ements clauses to be relevant to private damages of any kind, either then or at any later time. See Lord Townsend v. Hughes, 2 Mod., at 151, 86 Eng.Rep., at 994-995 (Magna Carta's amercements provisions apply in criminal, but not civil, cases). Even after the common law had developed to the point where courts occasionally did decrease a damages award or eliminate it altogether, such action was never predicated on the theory that the government somehow had overstepped its bounds. Rather, the perceived error was one made by the jury, as determined by reference to common-law, rather than constitutional, standards. Whether based on reasoning that the jury's award was so excessive that it must have been based on bias or prejudice, see Wood v. Gunston, Sty. 466, 82 Eng.Rep. 867 (K.B.1655); Leith v. Pope, 2 Bl.W. 1327, 96 Eng.Rep. 777 (C.P.1780), or that the jury must have misconstrued the evidence, see Ash v. Ash, Comb. 357, 90 Eng.Rep. 526 (1696), the proper focus was, and still is, on the behavior of the jury. It is difficult to understand how Magna Carta, or the English Bill of Rights as viewed through the lens of Magna Carta, compels us to read our Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause as applying to punitive damages when those documents themselves were never so applied.
Our conclusion that the Framers of the Eighth Amendment did not expressly intend it to apply to damages awards made by civil juries does not necessarily complete our inquiry. Our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has not been inflexible. The Court, when considering the Eighth Amendment, has stated: "Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth. This is particularly true of constitutions." Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 373, 30 S.Ct., at 551.
This aspect of our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence might have some force here were punitive damages a strictly modern creation, without solid grounding in pre-Revolutionary days. But the practice of awarding damages far in excess of actual compensation for quantifiable injuries was well recognized at the time the Framers produced the Eighth Amendment. Awards of double or treble damages authorized by statute date back to the 13th century, see Statute of Gloucester, 1278, 6 Edw. I, ch. 5, 1 Stat. at Large 66 (treble damages for waste); see also 2 Pollock & Maitland 522, and the doctrine was expressly recognized in cases as early as 1763.
Despite this recognition of civil exemplary damages as punitive in nature, the Eighth Amendment did not expressly include it within its scope. Rather, as we earlier have noted, the text of the Amendment points to an intent to deal only with the prosecutorial powers of government.
We shall not ignore the language of the Excessive Fines Clause, or its history, or the theory on which it is based, in order to apply it to punitive damages.
Petitioners also ask us to review the punitive damages award to determine whether it is excessive under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The parties agree that due process imposes some limits on jury awards of punitive damages, and it is not disputed that a jury award may not be upheld if it was the product of bias or passion, or if it was reached in proceedings lacking the basic elements of fundamental fairness. But petitioners make no claim that the proceedings themselves were unfair, or that the jury was biased or blinded by emotion or prejudice. Instead, they seek further due process protections, addressed directly to the size of the damages award. There is some authority in our opinions for the view that the Due Process Clause places outer limits on the size of a civil damages award made pursuant to a statutory scheme, see, e.g., St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63, 66-67, 40 S.Ct. 71, 73, 64 L.Ed. 139 (1919), but we have never addressed the precise question presented here: whether due process acts as a check on undue jury discretion to award punitive damages in the absence of any express statutory limit. See Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U.S. 71, 87, 108 S.Ct. 1645, 1655, 100 L.Ed.2d 62 (1988) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). That inquiry must await another day. Because petitioners failed to raise their due process argument before either the District Court or the Court of Appeals, and made no specific mention of it in their petition for certiorari in this Court, we shall not consider its effect on this award.
Federal law, however, will control on those issues involving the proper review of the jury award by a federal district court and court of appeals. See Donovan v. Penn Shipping Co., 429 U.S. 648, 649-650, 97 S.Ct. 835, 836-837, 51 L.Ed.2d 112 (1977); see also 6A J. Moore, J. Lucas, & G. Grotheer, Moore's Federal Practice, ¶ 59.041 (2d ed. 1987).
Without statutory (or at least common-law) standards for the determination of how large an award of punitive damages is appropriate in a given case, juries are left largely to themselves in making this important, and potentially devastating, decision. Indeed, the jury in this case was sent to the jury room with nothing more than the following terse instruction: "In determining the amount of punitive damages, . . . you may take into account the character of the defendants, their financial standing, and the nature of their acts." App. 81. Guidance like this is scarcely better than no guidance at all. I do not suggest that the instruction itself was in error; indeed, it appears to have been a correct statement of Vermont law. The point is, rather, that the instruction reveals a deeper flaw: the fact that punitive damages are imposed by juries guided by little more than an admonition to do what they think is best. Because " 'the touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government,' " Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 331, 106 S.Ct. 662, 665, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986), quoting Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 558, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2976, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), I for one would look longer and harder at an award of punitive damages based on such skeletal guidance than I would at one situated within a range of penalties as to which responsible officials had deliberated and then agreed.
The Court holds today that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment places no limits on the amount of punitive damages that can be awarded in a suit between private parties. That result is neither compelled by history nor supported by precedent, and I therefore respectfully dissent from Part II of the Court's opinion. I do, however, agree with the Court that no due process claimseither procedural or substantiveare properly presented in this case, and that the award of punitive damages here should not be overturned as a matter of federal common law. I therefore join Parts I, III, and IV of the Court's opinion. Moreover, I share Justice BRENNAN's view, ante, at 280-282, that nothing in the Court's opinion forecloses a due process challenge to awards of punitive damages or the method by which they are imposed, and I adhere to my comments in Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U.S. 71, 86-89, 108 S.Ct. 1645, 1654-1656, 100 L.Ed.2d 62 (1988) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), regarding the vagueness and procedural due process problems presented by juries given unbridled discretion to impose punitive damages.
In Ingraham, the Court held that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to disciplinary corporal punishment at a public school. Because the Excessive Fines Clause was not at issue in Ingraham, the Court's statement that the "text of the Eighth Amendment suggests an intention to limit the power of those entrusted with the criminal-law function of government," 430 U.S., at 664, 97 S.Ct., at 1408, is not controlling. The similar statement in Ex parte Watkins, that the Eighth Amendment "is addressed to courts of the United States exercising criminal jurisdiction," 7 Pet., at 573-574, is dictum, for the Court there held only that it did not have appellate jurisdiction to entertain a challenge, by way of a writ for habeas corpus, to criminal fines imposed upon a defend nt: "This Court has no appellate jurisdiction to revise the sentences of inferior courts in criminal cases; and cannot, even if the excess of the fine were apparent on the record, reverse the sentence." Id., at 574. There is another reason not to rely on or be guided by the sweeping statements in Ingraham and Ex parte Watkins. Those statements are inconsistent with the Court's application of the Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment to civil proceedings in Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 544-546, 72 S.Ct. 525, 536-537, 96 L.Ed. 547 (1952) (immigration and deportation). See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 754, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 2105, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987) (recognizing that Carlson "was a civil case"). In sum, none of the Court's precedents foreclose application of the Excessive Fines Clause to punitive damages.
The history of the Excessive Fines Clause has been thoroughly canvassed in several recent articles, all of which conclude that the Clause is applicable to punitive damages. See Boston, Punitive Damages and the Eighth Amendment: Application of the Excessive Fines Clause, 5 Cooley L.Rev. 667 (1988) (Boston); Massey, The Excessive Fines Clause and Punitive Damages: Some Lessons from History, 40 Vand.L.Rev. 1233 (1987) (Massey); Jeffries, A Comment on the Constitutionality of Punitive Damages, 72 Va.L.Rev 139 (1986) (Jeffries); Note, The Constitutionality of Punitive Damages Under the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, 85 Mich.L.Rev. 1699 (1987) (Note). In my view, a chronological account of the Clause and its antecedents demonstrates that the Clause derives from limitations in English law on monetary penalties exacted in civil and criminal cases to punish and deter misconduct. History aside, this Court's cases leave no doubt that punitive damages serve the same purposes punishment and deterrenceas the criminal law, and that excessive punitive damages present precisely the evil of exorbitant monetary penalties that the Clause was designed to prevent.
According to Blackstone, the English Bill of Rights was "only declaratory . . . of the old constitutional law." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *372. See also Schwoerer 92 (excessive fines provision of Article 10 "reaffirmed ancient law"). Of course, the only prohibition on excessive monetary penalties predating Article 10 was contained in Magna Carta. "Since it incorporated the earlier prohibition against excessive amercements which could arise in civil settingsas well as other forms of punishment, Article 10's limitation on excessive fines cannot be limited to strictly criminal cases but extends to monetary sanctions imposed in both criminal and civil contexts." Note, at 1717. Because the word "amercement" had dropped out of ordinary usage by the late 17th century, it appears that the word "fine" in Article 10 was simply shorthand for all monetary penalties, "whether imposed by judge or jury, in both civil and criminal proceedings." Massey 1256. Indeed, three months after the adoption of the English Bill of Rights, the House of Lords reversed a fine by referring to Magna Carta, and not to Article 10. See Earl of Devonshire's Case, 11 State Tr. 1367, 1372 (H.L. 1689) (ruling that "fine" of £ 30,000 for striking another was "excessive and exorbitant, against Magna Charta, the common right of the subject, and the law of the land").
As early as 1275, with the First Statute of Westminster, double and treble damages were allowed by statute. See ante, at 274. However, "it was only after the prevalence of the amercement had diminished that the cases began to report the award of punitive damages as a common law entitlement." Massey 1266. One of the first reported cases allowing punitive damages is Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft. 1, 18-19, 98 Eng.Rep. 489, 498-499 (K.B.1763): "A jury have it in their power to give damages for more than the injury received. Damages are designed not only as satisfaction to the injured p rson, but likewise as a punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future, and as a proof of the detestation of the jury to the action itself." The link between the gradual disappearance of the amercement and the emergence of punitive damages provides strong historical support for applying the Excessive Fines Clause to awards of punitive damages. See Boston 728-732.
The Court also points out that in Rookes v. Barnard, 1964 A.C. 1129, 1221-1231, Lord Devlin, in his extensive discussion of exemplary damages and decision to limit them to certain cases, did not mention either Magna Carta or the Excessive Fines Clause of the English Bill of Rights. Ante, at 273, n. 18. Although this is a small point, I think the Court is mistaken to place any reliance on the lack of citation to Magna Carta or the English Bill of Rights in Rookes. English courts today need not cite those two documents, for the principles set forth in them are now ingrained as part of the common law. See J. Holt, Magna Carta 2 (1965) ("It is now possible and indeed justifiable for a lawyer to compose a general survey of the freedom of the individual in England without once referring to Magna Carta"). Indeed, English courts have not cited Magna Carta or the English Bill of Rights in cases involving the excessiveness of criminal fines. See Queen v. Asif, 82 Cr.App.R. 123 (1985) (upholding fine of £ 25,000 for fraudulent evasion of taxes); Queen v. Farenden, 6 Cr.App.R. (S) 42 (1984) (finding that fine of £ 250 for first offense of careless driving was "too heavy" and reducing it to £ 100). Moreover, Lord Devlin noted in Rookes that punitive damages could be "used against liberty. Some of the awards that juries have made in the past seem to me to amount to a greater punishment than would be likely to be incurred if the conduct were criminal. . . . I should not allow the respect which is traditionally paid to an assessment of damages by a jury to prevent me from seeing that the weapon is used without restraint." 1964 A.C., at 1227. Thus, he suggested that some limits might have to be placed on punitive damages: "It may even be that the House of Lords may find it necessary to . . . place some arbitrary limit on awards of damages that are made by way of punishment. Exhortations to be moderate may not be enough." Id., at 1227-1228.
The Court, however, thinks otherwise, and emphasizes that at the time the Eighth Amendment was enacted, "the word 'fine' was understood to mean a payment to a sovereign as punishment for some offense." Ante, at 265, and n. 6. In my view, the meaning of that word was much more ambiguous than the Court is willing to concede. In defining the word "fine," some 18th-century dictionaries did not mention to whom the money was paid. See, e.g., T. Sheridan, A Dictionary of the English Language (6th ed. 1796) (unpaginated) ("a mulct or a pecuniary punishment"); S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (7th ed. 1785) (unpaginated) ("a mulct or pecuniary punishment," a "penalty," or "money paid for any exemption or liberty"). To the same effect are some 19th-century dictionaries. See, e.g., 1 C. Richardson, A New Dictionary of the English Language 796 (1839) ("any thing (as a sum of money) paid at the end, to make an end, termination or conclusion of a suit, of a prosecution"). That the word "fine" had a broader meaning in the 18th century is also illustrated by the language of § 37 of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641. That provision granted courts the authority to impose on a civil plaintiff who had instituted an improper suit "a proportionable fine to the use of the defendant, or accused person." 1 B. Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 76 (1971) (emphasis added). It is noteworthy that the "fine" was payable to a private party, and not a governmental entity. Boston 714. In 1646, the Massachusetts General Court ruled that § 37 of the Body of Liberties was based directly on Chapter 20 of Magna Carta. Howard 401, 404.
The Court also finds it significant that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, "fines were assessed in criminal, rather than in private civil, actions." Ante, at 265, and n. 7. Again, in my view the Court's recitation of history is not complete. As noted above, § 37 of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties required that "fines" payable to private litigants in civil cases be proportional. Furthermore, not all 17th-century sources unequivocally linked fines with criminal proceedings. See Blount ("fine" is "sometimes an amends, pecuniary punishment, or recompence upon an offence committed against the King, and his laws, or a Lord of a Mannor") (emphasis added). Nor did all American courts in the 19th century view "fines" as exclusively criminal. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the word "fine" in a statute meant "forfeitures and penalties recoverable in civil actions, as well as pecuniary punishments inflicted by sentence." Hanscomb v. Russell, 77 Mass. 373, 375 (1858). It explained that "the word 'fine' has other meanings" besides pecuniary penalties "inflicted by sentence of a court in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction . . . as appears by most of the dictionaries of our language, where it is defined not only as a pecuniary punishment, but also as a forfeiture, a penalty, etc." Id., at 374-375. The Iowa Supreme Court had the following to say about fines: "The terms, fine, forfeiture, and penalty, are often used loosely, and even confusedly. . . . A fine is a pecuniary penalty, and is commonly (perhaps always) to be collected by suit in some form. A 'forfeiture' is a penalty by which one loses his rights and interest in his property." Gosselink v. Campbell, 4 Iowa 296, 300 (1856) (emphasis added). Hence, around the time of the framing and enactment of the Eighth Amendment some courts and commentators believed that the word "fine" encompassed civil penalties.
We left open in Ingraham the possibility that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause might find application in some civil cases. See 430 U.S., at 669, n. 37, 97 S.Ct., at 1411, n. 37. The examples we cited as possibilitiespersons confined in mental or juvenile institutionsdo not provide much support for petitioners' argument that the Excessive Fines Clause is applicable to a civil award of punitive damages. In any event, petitioners have not made any argument specifically based on the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.