Private Law Theory

Abstract:
… This Article investigates whether mandatory caps on compensatory damage awards impact the Court’s Lochner-based due process reasonableness review of punitive damages. This Article discusses whether legislatively imposed mandatory caps encroach on the civil jury trial right, which in all states finds its interpretative basis in the English common law. This Article maintains that the state supreme court split on this issue reveals a fundamental dispute about the nature and scope of the civil jury trial right, as well as the scope of legislative authority to alter a civil jury’s determination of the value of an injury. This Article explores a similar question in Sixth Amendment Criminal Jury Trial Clause jurisprudence, specifically whether legislative authority exists to remove the jury from the sentencing process. This Article maintains Sixth Amendment jurisprudence offers two lessons: first, modern procedures cannot significantly alter common-law based jury trial rights; and second, at common-law a jury’s factual determinations were fully enforceable unless exceptional circumstances existed …

Sanders, Shaakirrah, Lochnerian Values, Mandatory Compensatory Damage Caps, and Lessons from the Sixth Amendment Jury Trial Clause (June 10, 2014).

First posted 2014-06-12 05:46:24