Opinion ID: 610843
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Haslip: Due Process Applies to Punitive Damages

Text: 49 The Supreme Court recently considered, in Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991), the effect of the Due Process Clause on the award of punitive damages. After noting the growing concern with excessive awards, the Court said that unlimited jury discretion--or unlimited judicial discretion for that matter--in the fixing of punitive damages may invite extreme results that jar one's constitutional sensibilities. Id. at 15, 111 S.Ct. at 1043. The Court there applied a Due Process analysis, which is described below, to the fairly elaborate Alabama system for imposing and reviewing punitive damages, and found that it comported with Due Process. 50 The Due Process Clause is a federal constitutional standard to be applied in the case of federal as well as state punitive damage awards. Although the Court in Haslip discussed the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court's analysis applies equally under the Fifth Amendment. The two Clauses should be applied in the same manner when two situations present identical questions differing only in that one involves a proscription against the federal government and the other a proscription against the States. 7 If state punitive damage awards are subject to the strictures of the Constitution, there is no reason that the standards employed by federal courts to review federal punitive damage awards should escape the scrutiny of the Due Process Clause. It should make no difference whether the imposition of such damages was by a federal or state court or whether on federal or state claims. For this purpose there is only one Due Process Clause. The principles of Haslip are applicable, therefore, to punitive damages imposed by federal courts for violations of federal law. 8 51 The Court in Haslip did not mandate a single standard, applied at a single level, for reviewing punitive damages. Instead, the Court held that the three-stage Alabama punitive damage system comported with the Due Process Clause. Id. at 16-18, 111 S.Ct. at 1044-46. In the Alabama system, the first stage is jury instructions crafted to describe the proper purpose of punitive damages. 9 The next stage is the trial court's review of the jury award for excessiveness. 10 The third stage is appellate court review. 11 A three-stage approach is appropriate in the context of the punitive damage issues in this case as well. 52