Court Opinion

ID: 9797898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:31:41.375398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:59:47.759673
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority in its disposition of all of defendant’s assignments of error except for one. The majority erroneously concludes that one of defendant’s proposed instructions on punitive damages correctly stated one of the limits imposed by the Due Process Clause on the award of punitive damages in this case. The proposed instruction did not correctly state the applicable limit. Hence, the trial court did not err in refusing to give it.
Defendant asked the court to give the following instruction:
“You are not to punish a defendant for the impact of its conduct on individuals in other states.”
*71The majority concludes that the instruction stated the legal principle, established in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 US 559, 116 S Ct 1589, 134 L Ed 2d 809 (1996), and later confirmed in State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 US 408, 123 S Ct 1513, 155 L Ed 585 (2003), that the Supreme Court requires to be conveyed to a jury at a defendant’s request. See 206 Or App at 46, 50-51. Contrary to the majority’s view, the instruction did not state the principle that the Court established in Gore.
Gore established that a state “does not have the power * * * to punish [a defendant] for conduct that was lawful where it occurred and that had no impact [on the state] or its residents.” 517 US at 572-73 (footnote omitted). The Court confirmed in Campbell that a jury must be told of that principle in appropriate cases:
“A jury must be instructed, furthermore, that it may not use evidence of out-of-state conduct to punish a defendant for action that was lawful in the jurisdiction where it occurred. Gore, 517 U.S. at 572-573 (noting that a State ‘does not have the power ... to punish [a defendant] for conduct that was lawful where it occurred and that had no impact on [the State] or its residents’).”
538 US at 422.
Defendant did not request an instruction that stated that principle. In fact, plaintiff argued to the trial court that Gore stood for the principle that evidence of defendant’s lawful conduct in other states could not be used to punish defendant in Oregon, but that the conduct at issue in this case was unlawful in every state, so an instruction stating the principle that Gore established would not be appropriate. It was that argument that appears to have led the trial court to reject defendant’s proposed instruction. Gore was solely concerned with one state’s ability to punish a defendant for the defendant’s lawful conduct in other states. In that light, it should be evident that the majority is simply wrong to say that defendant’s proposed instruction is an instruction required by Gore.
The Court in Gore specifically did not decide “whether one State may properly attempt to change a tortfeasor’s unlawful conduct in another State.” 517 US at 573 n 20 *72(emphasis in original). The Court took a step toward answering that question in Campbell, which was decided after the trial in this case. The Court explained in Campbell that “each State alone can determine what measure of punishment, if any, to impose on a defendant who acts within its jurisdiction.” 538 US at 422 (citation omitted).
It is not entirely clear how that principle applies in a case such as this. Campbell involved claims by Utah plaintiffs against their insurance company over the way in which the insurance company had defended them against tort claims arising from an automobile accident. The plaintiffs sought and recovered punitive damages against the insurance company based, in part, on its conduct in handling insurance claims involving its insureds throughout the country. The nature of that conduct was such that its effect on insureds in one state could never extend to other states or to people in them. For example, the harm that the Campbell plaintiffs suffered in Utah as a result of the insurance company’s tortious conduct was harm that would not have an effect outside of Utah.1 It was in that context that the Court said in Campbell that it is for “each State alone [to] determine what measure of punishment, if any, to impose on a defendant who acts within its jurisdiction.” Id.
That principle is consistent with a principle that was critical to the decision in Gore. The Court was careful in Gore to make clear that the limitation that it imposed was a limitation on the power of a state “to punish [a defendant] for conduct that was lawful where it occurred and that had no impact on [the State] or its residents.” 517 US at 573 (emphasis added). Campbell extended that principle to apply to the imposition of punitive damages by a state for unlawful conduct in other states that had no impact on the state or its residents.
In a tobacco case such as this, however, defendant’s conduct in other states that causes harm to people in those states can have an effect on Oregon and its residents. The conduct at issue in this case was conduct that was nationwide *73in scope, it extended over decades, and it endangered the health of people throughout the country. Because of the mobility of people in our country, each state can be adversely affected by the health-care costs incurred in the state as a result of tobacco-related diseases contracted by people who move to the state after having been induced to purchase and smoke cigarettes in other states by defendant’s unlawful conduct in those states.
For example, Michelle Schwarz began smoking full-flavor cigarettes when she was a nursing student in Missouri. She later moved to Oregon, where she eventually switched to Merit cigarettes, contracted lung cancer, and died. Her experience is not unique, and the jury reasonably could infer that many people in Oregon have contracted tobacco-related diseases and incurred health-care costs as a result of defendant’s conduct toward those people when they lived in other states. Consequently, Oregon and its residents can be affected by defendant’s unlawful conduct in other states that affected people in other states. Because Oregon and its residents can be affected in that way, it may be permissible under the Due Process Clause for Oregon to punish defendant for the effect of its unlawful conduct on people in other states. In other words, in a case such as this, it may be permissible for Oregon to punish defendant to deter its unlawful conduct in other states toward people in those states. If so, then defendant’s proposed instruction was unquestionably an erroneous instruction, and the trial court did not err in refusing to give it.
The majority understands Campbell to sweep more broadly and to stand for the principle that an Oregon jury cannot, under any circumstances, punish a defendant for the effect in other states of the defendant’s unlawful conduct in those states. Even if that understanding of Campbell is correct, that does not mean that a jury cannot award punitive damages that reflect the fact that the defendant’s unlawful conduct in other states had harmful effects in those states. Gore recognized that distinction in explaining the relationship between the imposition of punishment for lawful conduct in other states and the manner in which a state can impose punishment that reflects the fact that the defendant’s unlawful conduct in other states caused harm in those states:
*74“Our cases concerning recidivist statutes are not to the contrary. Habitual offender statutes permit the sentencing court to enhance a defendant’s punishment for a crime in light of prior convictions, including convictions in foreign jurisdictions. A sentencing judge may even consider past criminal behavior which did not result in a conviction and lawful conduct that bears on the defendant’s character and prospects for rehabilitation. But we have never held that a sentencing court could properly punish lawful conduct. This distinction is precisely the one that we draw here.”
517 US at 573 n 19 (emphasis in original; citations omitted).
For example, a court imposing punishment on a defendant who has committed manslaughter in two states cannot sentence the defendant for the manslaughter in the other state, but the punishment that the court imposes can be based on the fact that the defendant committed manslaughter in two states. In this case, that means that the punishment imposed by an Oregon jury for the effect on plaintiff of defendant’s unlawful conduct can be based on the fact that that conduct affected people in other states in the same way that it affected plaintiff, subject to the limit imposed by the Due Process Clause on the size of the award. In other words, the jury could punish defendant more severely in Oregon because of the fact that the unlawful conduct that harmed plaintiff also harmed people in other states. What the jury could not do is to punish defendant specifically and independently for the effect of its unlawful conduct on people in other states. Defendant’s proposed instruction would have misled the jury by telling it that it could not punish defendant at all for the effect of its conduct on people in other states. Because the instruction would have misled the jury in that way, the trial court did not err in refusing to give it. See, e.g., Beglau v. Albertus, 272 Or 170, 179, 536 P2d 1251 (1975) (“It is fundamental that a request for an instruction may properly be denied, without error, unless the requested instruction is clear and correct in all respects, both in form and in substance, and unless it is altogether free from error.”); see also Bennett v. Farmers Ins. Co., 332 Or 138, 153, 26 P3d 785 (2001).
Finally, defendant’s proposed instruction was flawed because it did not distinguish between defendant’s *75conduct in Oregon and its conduct in other states. The Due Process Clause restricts a state’s authority to punish a defendant for conduct occurring outside the state that does not affect the state or those in it. As noted above, the conduct at issue in this case was nationwide in scope and extended over decades. Because of the mobility of people in this country and the period over which defendant’s unlawful conduct occurred, many states could punish defendant for the harm suffered by a particular individual. For example, a Merit smoker who lived in Idaho but regularly vacationed and purchased Merit cigarettes in both Oregon and Washington and who contracted lung cancer and died in Idaho would be a person for whose injuries any of the three states could impose punishment, because defendant’s conduct in each state could have contributed to the person’s injuries.2 Consequently, the people affected by defendant’s conduct whose injuries could provide a basis for Oregon to impose punishment would not be limited to Oregon residents who purchased and smoked Merits, nor to Merit smokers who are diagnosed with or die of a tobacco-related disease in Oregon. There is evidence in this record that over 500,000 people die in the United States each year from tobacco-related causes, and that 6,522 of those deaths occurred in Oregon in 1999, the year that Michelle Schwarz died. In light of that evidence, defendant’s instruction could have misled the jury to believe that it could punish defendant only for the deaths caused by Merit cigarettes in Oregon. Because the instruction could have misled the jury in that way, that is a further reason to conclude that defendant’s proposed instruction was flawed and, hence, that trial court did not err in refusing to give it.
For all of the foregoing reasons, the majority is wrong to conclude that the trial court erred in failing to give defendant’s proposed instruction. It follows that it is wrong to remand the punitive damage award for a new trial.3
*76My conclusion that the proper disposition of defendant’s appeal is to affirm on defendant’s assignments of error *77necessarily means that I disagree with the majority that plaintiff’s cross-appeal is moot. Plaintiff assigns error to the trial court’s decision to reduce plaintiffs award of punitive damages from the $150 million that the jury awarded to $100 million. For the following reasons, I conclude that the trial court erred in reducing the award.
After the jury returned its verdict, defendant moved to eliminate or reduce the punitive damage award. Defendant’s central argument was that the $150 million punitive damage award violated the federal Due Process Clause because it was grossly excessive.4 The trial court agreed with defendant and reduced the award to $100 million.
Punitive damages in Oregon “have a salutary effect in two respects [: they] visit the wrong-doer with wholesome punishment, and afford an example calculated to deter others from the commission of malevolent acts[.]” Sullivan v. Oreg. Ry. & N. Co., 12 Or 392, 404, 7 P 508 (1885); see also Martin v. Cambas, 134 Or 257, 261, 293 P 601 (1930) (“The generally accepted doctrine is that [punitive] damages are awarded by way of punishment to the offender and as a warning to others, or, according to some authorities, by way of example.”). However, the United States Supreme Court has explained that “[e]lementary notions of fairness enshrined in our constitutional jurisprudence dictate that a person receive fair notice not only of the conduct that will subject him to punishment, but also of the severity of the penalty that a State may impose” for that conduct. Gore, 517 US at 574. Thus, the Due Process Clause “imposes substantive limits ‘beyond which penalties may not go.’ ” TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509 US 443, 453-54, 113 S Ct *782711, 125 L Ed 2d 366 (1993) (quoting Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Seegers, 207 US 73, 78, 28 S Ct 28, 52 L Ed 108 (1907)). Where a state imposes a “grossly excessive” punitive damage award against a tortfeasor, it transgresses those constitutional limits. Gore, 517 US at 562. A court’s task on review of a punitive damage award is to subject it to “[e]xacting appellate review” to determine whether it is grossly excessive, Campbell, 538 US at 418, which presents a legal rather than a factual issue. Parrott v. Carr Chevrolet, Inc., 331 Or 537, 555, 17 P3d 473 (2001).
The United States Supreme Court has identified three guideposts to assist courts in assessing whether a punitive damage award is grossly excessive: “(1) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s misconduct; (2) the disparity between the actual or potential harm suffered by the plaintiff and the punitive damage award; and (3) the difference between the punitive damages awarded by the jury and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.” Campbell, 538 US at 418 (citing Gore, 517 US at 575). Those guideposts are designed to serve the constitutional concerns about notice and fairness. I examine the punitive damage award in this case in relation to each guidepost in turn.
The “most important indicium of the reasonableness of a punitive damages award is the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct.” Gore, 517 US at 575. The United States Supreme Court has explained that a court should consider the following in analyzing the reprehensibility of a defendant’s conduct:
“[(1) whether] the harm caused was physical as opposed to economic; [(2) whether] the tortious conduct evinced an indifference to or a reckless disregard of the health or safety of others; [(3) whether] the target of the conduct had financial vulnerability; [(4) whether] the conduct involved repeated actions or was an isolated incident; and [(5) whether] the harm was the result of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit, or mere accident.”
Campbell, 538 US at 419.
Defendant’s conduct in this case is remarkably similar to the conduct of the defendant in Williams v. Philip Morris Inc., 340 Or 35, 63, 127 P3d 1165 (2006) (WilliamsIV), *79that the Oregon Supreme Court concluded was “extraordinarily reprehensible.” In that case, the court held that a punitive damages award of $79.5 million against a tobacco company was not grossly excessive. The evidence supporting the underlying fraud and negligence claims in Williams IV is largely similar to the evidence in this case. Williams IV, however, did not involve allegations that the marketing of low-tar cigarettes constituted fraud. Rather, the claims in that case were based on the defendant’s
“40-year publicity campaign * * * to undercut published concerns about the dangers of smoking. [The defendant] and the tobacco industry had known for most of those 40 years, if not all of them, that smoking was dangerous. Nevertheless, they tried to create in the public mind the impression that there were legitimate reasons to doubt the danger of smoking. [The defendant] and the tobacco industry did so to give smokers a reason to keep smoking (or, perhaps more accurately, to undermine one of the main incentives for smokers to stop smoking).”
Id. at 39 (citations omitted). On the facts in that case, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded that the defendant’s conduct met four of the five reprehensibility factors that had been identified by the United States Supreme Court. Id. at 56.
Defendant’s conduct in this case satisfies those same four reprehensibility factors. The harm was plainly physical rather than economic — as a result of defendant’s conduct, plaintiff developed lung cancer, which metastasized to her brain and ultimately caused her death. As did the defendant in Williams IV, this defendant “showed indifference to and reckless disregard for the safety not just of [decedent], but of countless other Oregonians, when it knowingly spread false or misleading information to keep smokers smoking.” Id. Furthermore, defendant’s conduct was repeated and, because it was fraudulent, was the result of deceit. There can be no serious debate on the question of the reprehensibility of defendant’s conduct.
The second guidepost is the “the disparity between the actual or potential harm suffered by the plaintiff and the punitive damages award.” Campbell, 538 US at 418. At trial, *80as on appeal, defendant emphasized the disparity between the $150 million punitive damage award and the $168,514.22 compensatory damage award. From the trial court’s oral ruling on defendant’s motion to reduce or eliminate the punitive damage award, it appears that the court’s motivation for reducing the punitive damage award was to address that disparity.
“The second * * * guidepost examines the ratio between the punitive damage award and the actual or potential harm to the plaintiff.” Williams IV, 340 Or at 48 (citing Campbell, 538 US at 424) (emphasis added). However, the United States Supreme Court has “consistently rejected the notion that the constitutional line is marked by a simple mathematical formula, even one that compares actual and potential damages to the punitive award.” Gore, 517 US at 582 (emphasis in original). In Campbell, the Court “decline [d] again to impose a bright-line ratio which a punitive damages award cannot exceed.” 538 US at 425.
The numerator in the ratio in this case is $150 million dollars. That much is simple. Determining the denominator presents more of a challenge.
In Williams IV, the Oregon Supreme Court made clear that, in calculating the denominator, a court should look only at the harm to this plaintiff and not at harm to others. 340 Or at 61. However, a court may consider the actual as well as the potential harm to this plaintiff. Id. at 60.
The jury valued the actual harm to plaintiff at $168,514.22. Michelle Schwarz’s medical bills totalled $118,514.22, and the jury awarded her $50,000 in general damages for pain and suffering. Michelle Schwarz was diagnosed with lung cancer in February 1998 and died in July 1999. Hence, she battled cancer for a period of approximately 17 months. Had she lived longer, her medical bills could have accumulated to at least $250,000. See Williams TV, 340 Or at 60 (noting that the plaintiffs medical bills for lung cancer treatment “could easily have been 10 or more times the [$25,000] awarded here”). Similarly, “[o]nly chance saved [defendant] from a much higher [general] damage award.” Id. We know from the Williams IV decision that death by *81lung cancer has the potential to cause pain and suffering that a jury could value at at least $800,000. Id. at 44.
Thus, at a minimum, the denominator in the ratio in this case is $1,050,000 ($250,000 in potential medical expenses and $800,000 in potential general damages). Of course, the denominator could have been an even larger number. Causing a human being to develop lung cancer and die is a risky business that is not for the faint of heart; it is impossible to predict exactly how much pain and how many medical bills that person will be forced to endure. We could very easily say that the potential harm to Michelle Schwarz from defendant’s fraud and negligence was $37.5 million, based on a compensatory damage award that a jury returned in a Florida case. See Harold C. Reeder, The ‘Law of Tobacco’ Is a Major Contributing Factor that Hampers Effective Resolution to the Country’s Tobacco Problem, 6 Fla Coastal L Rev 17, 48 (2004) (describing the $37.5 million in compensatory damages awarded to John Lukács).
Based on a numerator of $150 million and a denominator of $1,050,000, the ratio between the punitive damages award and the actual and potential harm to this plaintiff in this case is 143 to l.5 As the Oregon Supreme Court observed in Williams IV, the second guidepost is not met where the ratio “substantially exceed[s] the single digit ratio (9:1) that the [United States Supreme] Court has said ordinarily will apply in the usual case.” 340 Or at 62 (citing Campbell, 538 US at 425). Thus, the question will ultimately turn on whether, in light of where this award stands in relation to all three guideposts, this is a “usual case.” However, before answering that question, it is necessary to address the third guidepost — “the difference between the punitive damages awarded by the jury and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.” Campbell, 538 US at 418.
As the Oregon Supreme Court has explained, analyzing the third guidepost
*82“requires three steps. First, courts must identify comparable civil or criminal sanctions. Second, courts must consider how serious the comparable sanctions are, relative to the universe of sanctions that the legislature authorizes to punish inappropriate conduct. Third, courts must then evaluate the punitive damage award in light of the relative severity of the comparable sanctions. The guidepost may militate against a significant punitive damage award if the state’s comparable sanctions are mild, trivial, or nonexistent. However, the guidepost will support a more significant punitive damages award when the state’s comparable sanctions are severe.”
Williams IV, 340 Or at 58. For the reasons that follow, I conclude that the state’s comparable sanctions are severe and, thus, justify a more significant punitive damage award.
The parties have not identified comparable civil sanctions under state law. However, defendant’s conduct in this case is not unlike the conduct prohibited by the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act. That act provides that a person engages in an unlawful trade practice when it, among other things, “[Represents that * * * goods * * * have sponsorship, approval, characteristics, ingredients, uses, benefits, quantities or qualities that they do not have * * *.” ORS 646.608(l)(e) (emphasis added). Here, the jury could have concluded from the evidence that defendant represented Merit brand cigarettes to be a less dangerous alternative to full-flavor cigarettes — a characteristic or quality that Merit cigarettes do not, in fact, have. Under ORS 646.632, a prosecuting attorney can bring an action against a person engaging in unlawful trade practices. In such an action, the prosecuting attorney can recover, on behalf of the state, a civil penalty of $25,000 for each violation, “if the court finds that a person is willfully using or has willfully used [an unfair trade practice].” ORS 646.642(3). The facts in this case could easily support a conclusion that defendant willfully misrepresented that Merit brand cigarettes were a less risky alternative to full-flavor cigarettes when it knew that they were not. The record suggests that Michelle Schwarz smoked a pack a day of Merit brand cigarettes from 1976 until at least 1998— when she was diagnosed with cancer. Thus, defendant sold 365 packs of Merit brand cigarettes to decedent per year for 22 years, for a total of 8,030 packs of Merit brand cigarettes. *83Each sale of a pack of cigarettes constituted a violation of the Unlawful Trade Practices Act. Thus, a prosecuting attorney could have sought a civil penalty of $200,750,000 against defendant for its sales of Merit brand cigarettes to Michelle Schwarz. Thus, the comparable civil sanctions are severe indeed.
The comparable criminal sanctions are as well. Based on conduct similar to defendant’s conduct in this case, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded in Williams IVthat the conduct of the defendant in that case “would constitute at least second-degree manslaughter, a Class B felony.” 340 Or at 59 (citing ORS 163.125(l)(a)). As the Oregon Supreme Court noted, “[i]ndividuals who commit Class B felonies may face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.” Id. at 59-60 (citing ORS 161.605(2) and ORS 161.625(c)). Thus, the legislature has seen fit to prescribe incarceration for individuals who behave as defendant has in this case, and the deprivation of one’s liberty is a severe penalty indeed. Of course, one cannot incarcerate a corporation. Instead, “[corporations that commit a felony of any class may be fined up to $50,000, or required to pay up to twice the amount that the corporation gained by committing the offense.” Id. (citing ORS 161.655(l)(a), (3)). Hence, the criminal penalty that could be imposed against defendant for its conduct in causing Michelle’s death is at least $50,000.
In short, comparable civil and criminal sanctions for defendant’s conduct could exceed $150 million. As a result, the third guidepost supports a similar punitive damage award.
Having reviewed the punitive damage award in relation to the three guideposts, we find ourselves in the same situation in which the Oregon Supreme Court found itself in Williams IV. That is, of the three guideposts, “two support a very significant punitive damage award. One guidepost — the ratio — cuts the other way.” Williams IV, 340 Or at 62-63. Because of the similarity between the two cases, it is useful to set forth the Oregon Supreme Court’s analysis:
“The * * * guideposts are not bright-line tests. See, e.g., Campbell, 538 US at 425 (‘there are no rigid benchmarks that a punitive damages award may not surpass’); see also *84Gore, 517 US at 582 (‘we have consistently rejected the notion that the constitutional line is marked by a simple mathematical formula’). In other words, the guideposts are only that — guideposts. Gore also referred to them as indicia. 517 US at 575 (reprehensibility is ‘most important indicium’); id. at 580 (ratio is ‘second and perhaps most commonly cited indicium’); id. at 583 (comparable sanctions ‘provides a third indicium for excessiveness’). Campbell specifically contemplated that some awards exceeding single-digit ratios would satisfy due process. See [538 US] at 425 (‘in practice, few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process’). Single-digit ratios may mark the boundary in ordinary cases, but the absence of bright-line rules necessarily suggests that the other two guideposts — reprehensibility and comparable sanctions— can provide a basis for overriding the concern that may arise from a [higher] ratio.
“And this is by no means an ordinary case. [The defendant’s] conduct here was extraordinarily reprehensible, by any measure of which we are aware. It put a significant number of victims at profound risk for an extended period of time. The State of Oregon treats such conduct as grounds for a severe criminal sanction, but even that did not dissuade [the defendant] from pursuing its scheme.
“In summary, [the defendant], with others, engaged in a massive, continuous, near-half-century scheme to defraud the plaintiff and many others, even when [the defendant] had reasons to suspect — and for two or more decades absolutely knew — that the scheme was damaging the health of a very large group of Oregonians — the smoking public — and was killing a number of that group. Under such extreme and outrageous circumstances, we conclude that the jury’s $79.5 million punitive damage award against [the defendant] comported with due process, as we understand that standard to relate to punitive damage awards.”
340 Or at 63-64 (emphasis in original).
Although defendant’s low-tar fraud may be of more recent vintage than the fraud at issue in Williams IV, defendant’s conduct with regard to low-tar cigarettes is no less “extreme and outrageous” than the conduct at issue in Williams IV. In fact, defendant’s low-tar fraud was even more “extraordinarily reprehensible” in that it demonstrated *85another level of sophistication in defendant’s campaign of deception. That is, not only did defendant try to create doubt in the mind of the consumer about the dangers of smoking, but it also offered those smokers whose concerns lingered a purportedly less hazardous alternative — an alternative that defendant knew was no less hazardous. Furthermore, defendant’s conduct exposed it to civil and criminal liability in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For those reasons, I would conclude that the reprehensibility of defendant’s conduct and the comparable civil and criminal sanctions override any concern that arises from the ratio between compensatory and punitive damages in this case. The jury’s $150 million punitive damage award was not grossly excessive and comported with the requirements of due process. Thus, the trial court erred in reducing the punitive damage award in this case from $150 million to $100 million.
In sum, the jury’s original $150 million punitive damages award complied with the federal Due Process Clause. The trial court erred in reducing the award. Therefore, the proper disposition of plaintiffs cross-appeal is to reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand with instructions to enter a judgment in accordance with the jury’s verdict. The majority errs in failing to do that.
Wollheim, Ortega, and Rosenblum, JJ., join in this dissent.

 The out-of-state conduct at issue in Gore similarly was conduct that could not have effects beyond the states in which the conduct occurred.

 The majority focuses on only one of the three theories on which plaintiff recovered punitive damages against defendant in this case, the fraud theory. Consequently, it does not recognize that, under the negligence and strict liability theories under which plaintiff recovered punitive damages, the sale of Merit cigarettes to a person in Oregon would constitute tortious conduct against which Oregon could act.

 Judge Linder concludes in her concurrence that it does not matter whether the instruction that defendant proposed was a correct instruction. She relies on *76State v. George, 337 Or 329, 97 P3d 659 (2004), as support for her conclusion. In George, the court held that the defendant’s failure to submit a correct instruction on the effect of a verdict of guilty except for insanity did not foreclose his ability to obtain a new trial as a result of the trial court’s failure to give such an instruction. The court based its decision on two independent principles. First, it held that ORS 161.313 specifically directs trial courts to give such an instruction to the jury, “without regard to whether the defendant wants or requests such an instruction.” Id. at 339. Second, the trial court had made clear that it would not give such an instruction no matter how it was phrased, so it did not matter whether the instruction that the defendant offered was correctly phrased.
Neither principle applies to this case. It misreads Campbell to claim, as Judge Linder does, that Campbell stands for the proposition that a trial court has an independent obligation under the Due Process Clause to instruct a jury on the limits imposed on the award of punitive damages without regard to whether the defendant wants or requests such an instruction. Moreover, even if Campbell were understood to impose such an obligation, the obligation that it identifies is an obligation to instruct a jury “that it may not use evidence of out-of-state conduct to punish a defendant for action that was lawful in the jurisdiction where it occurred.” 538 US at 422 (emphasis added). Of course, that is not an instruction that would have helped defendant in a case such as this, nor one that would have prevented plaintiff from making the very argument to the jury about which defendant complains.
As for the second principle, the trial court did not refuse in this case to give an instruction on out-of-state impact no matter what form the instruction took. In the colloquy over the instruction, defendant’s counsel told the court that defendant’s proposed instruction was based on Gore and was an instruction that the trial court had given in the Williams tobacco case. That led to the following colloquy between the court and plaintiffs counsel:
“THE COURT: Counsel, do you have any strong objection to that?
“MR. LANE: For the same—
“THE COURT: Strong objection.
“MR. LANE: For the same ones I have already articulated as far as my instruction of Gore, what was said there, that the misconduct, the unlawful misconduct in 50 states is subject to punitive damages in this courtroom. Gore doesn’t say it’s not. Gore was limited to what was lawful conduct in some states under the conduct alleged in Gore.
“THE COURT: But you are saying that unlawful conduct can be punished throughout all 50 states?
“MR. LANE: The subsequent cases to Gore make that an [sic] abundantly clear. The Continental cases cited by defendants here actually referring to Gore makes the point, citing Gore a State may not sanction a tortfeasor with the intent of changing the tortfeasor’s lawful conduct in other states. Of course, unlike [Gore], defendant’s conduct in the case before us — referring to the Continental case — would be tortious in any state.
“THE COURT: All right. [Defendant’s proposed instruction] is out.”
As the colloquy indicates, the court had to be persuaded by plaintiff not to give defendant’s proposed instruction, and the court’s decision was influenced by the language of the instruction. Those facts readily distinguish this case from George.

 In its motion to reduce or eliminate the punitive damage award, defendant also argued that the award should be reduced under former ORS 18.537(3), renumbered, as ORS 31.730(3) (2003), because of defendant’s substantial remedial measures. Defendant assigned error in its fifteenth assignment of error to the trial court’s rejection of that argument. I would reject that assignment as well for the reasons stated in our decisions in Williams v. Philip Morris Inc., 182 Or App 44, 72-74, 48 P3d 824 (Williams I), adh’d to on recons, 183 Or App 192, 51 P3d 670 (2002) (Williams II), rev den, 335 Or 142, vac’d and rem’d, 540 US 801, 124 S Ct 56, 157 L Ed 2d 12 (2003), on remand, 193 Or App 527, 92 P3d 126 (2004) (Williams III), aff'd, 340 Or 35, 127 P3d 1165 (2006) (Williams IV), and Williams II, 183 Or App at Í8487. What defendant did not argue (and, hence, I do not address) is that the punitive damages award is somehow flawed under the statutory standards in ORS 30.925(2).