It's the other silly season. This is the time of year the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) dumps out a whole pile of decisions before the good judges beat feet to get out of town for the summer. Yesterday, I was surprised to read that, after 19 years, Exxon has finally won it's lawsuit to slash damages paid to land and business owners in Alaska for the devastating Exxon Valdez accident. In a 5-3 decision, the court arbitrarily set a 1 to 1 ratio for maritime cases for punitive damages. In this case, the actual damage amount was $2.5 billion, so $2.5 billion was set for punitive. This decision obviously overrides the state courts decisions as to punitive damages. In dissenting, Ginsburg asked, ""What ratio will the court set for defendants who acted maliciously or in pursuit of financial gain?" And: "On the next opportunity, will the court rule, definitively, that 1:1 is the ceiling due process requires in all of the states, and for all federal claims?" Both very good questions. Stevens advocated congress take responsibility for establishing widely applied rules.
So, what is the issue here? First, let me say that I am not a big fan of huge punitive damage awards. Also, I believe that malicious lawsuits have grown way out of hand in some states. However, it seems that broad rules for the application of damage awards is not a constitutional issue; it's a legislative issue. Here we have a court writing laws from the bench, the very definition of "activist judges" that the right wing likes to throw around at every turn.
We'll see how the right wing responds to these activist judges. My guess is that the decision will be hailed as "wise and well thought out".
As an aside, the very controversial Washington DC handgun ban decision is due out today. This is the first decision by the SCOTUS on the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms clause since 1939. Could be an interesting day.
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