Opinion ID: 78345
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Facial Excessiveness

Text: Finally, the district court found § 616(a)(1)(A) unconstitutionally excessive on its face because the statutory-damages provision is expressly not compensatory in nature. The district court concluded that this renders the statute punitive in nature and it therefore applied the constitutional excessiveness review found in St. Louis Iron Mountain & S. R.R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63, 40 S.Ct. 71, 64 L.Ed. 139 (1919). According to the district court, because only litigants that have not suffered any actual harm will avail themselves of statutory damages under § 616(a)(1)(A), these damages will always be unconstitutionally excessive when compared to the actual harm caused by the violator's actions. We disagree with the district court that the FCRA's statutory-damages provision is punitive in nature. Prior to the 1996 amendment to FCRA, the statute permitted victims of willful violations to obtain actual and punitive damages. The current version of FCRA provides that plaintiffs may elect to receive actual damages or statutory damages, but not both, and in addition maintains the punitive damages provision. 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a). Because the FCRA already contains a punitive damages provision and specifies that statutory damages may only be awarded in lieu of actual damages, the district court erred in concluding that the statutory damages provision is tantamount to a punitive damages provision. Moreover, even if the statutory damages provision could be construed as punitive, the district court still erred in ruling that § 616(a)(1)(A) always yields unconstitutionally excessive verdicts. As discussed above, see supra § III.B, the FCRA does not forbid individuals who suffered actual harm from seeking statutory damages. Even if none of the plaintiffs in the instant case were actually harmed, it is conceivable that in the future a party with actual harm that is difficult to compute will bring a case seeking statutory damages. In such a case, the actual harm might be very close to the statutory damages. This mere possibility of a constitutional application is enough to defeat a facial challenge to the statute. See High Ol' Times, Inc. v. Busbee, 673 F.2d 1225, 1228 (11th Cir. 1982) (holding that to be facially unconstitutional, the statute must be unconstitutional in all of its applications ... [T]he possibility of a valid application necessarily precludes facial invalidity.). As such, the district court erred in engaging in constitutional excessiveness review and in finding § 616(a)(1)(A) unconstitutionally excessive on its face.