# Amicus Curiae Brief — State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell

> Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more.

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385014_0549%3A36

## Record

- **Collection:** Supreme Court brief
- **Document type:** Amicus Curiae Brief
- **Published:** January 1, 2003
- **Citation:** 538 U.S. 408

## Text

~ ee
» * gg es =

~~» j; OUDrTEeMe On “it, US. i

'

‘o* } FILED
| ort 7 02

No. 01-1289
i . ‘ risk :

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE Co.,

Petitioner,
Vv.

CURTIS B. CAMPBELL AND INEZ PREECE CAMPBELL,

Respondents.

On Writ Of Certiorari to the
Supreme Court of Utah

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS OF AMERICA
IN SUPPORT OF THE RESPONDENTS

MARY E. ALEXANDER JEFFREY ROBERT WHITE*
1050 31st St., N.W 1050 31st. St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20007. Washington, DC 20007
(202) 965-3500 (202) 965-3500

President, * Counsel of Record

The Association of Attorney for Amicus Curiae

Trial Lawyers of America

BEST AVAILABLE COPY)

—_—

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES - hii
IDENTITY ANDINTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE........1
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT sccccecsecsecseceee &
ARGUMENT 0 eccnscsesseees evcceccccecsecoeee D

I. THIS COURT SHOULD OVERRULE ITS PRIOR
HOLDING THAT THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE
PLACES SUBSTANTIVE LIMITS ON PUNITIVE
DAMAGE AWARDS. ..... - —

A. Substantive Due Process Review of
Punitive Damage Awards Lacks Support
in the Constitutional Text, Historical
Practice and this Court’s Precedent. .............. 4

B. Substantive Due Process Review Adds
Little to Judicial Safeguards Against
Excessive Awards Already Provided By
Common Law. : 7 sesessessesceee AD

C. To The Extent The Eighth Amendment
Applies To Excessive Punitive Awards,
Substantive Due Process Is Inapplicable... 15

D. Substantive Due Process Intrudes Upon
Matters Of State Law And Policy Which
Are Best Left To State Courts And
Legislatures. ............ secescene : 16

ll
Il. PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS PROHIBITS
COURTS FROM EXCLUDING EVIDENCE AND
REFUSING CLEAR JURY INSTRUCTIONS ON
ISSUES RELEVANT TO THE APPROPRIATE
AMOUNT OF PUNITIVE DAMAGES. 19

A. Proper Jury Instructions Are Key to
Preventing Arbitrary or Biased Verdicts.... 19

B. Juries Are Competent to Render Fair
Verdicts When Properly Instructed........... 23

CONCLUSION 28

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) .........-00s0+ 23
Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U.S. 71 (1988)21
BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559

Ee passim
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) .........ccccceeeeeees Y
Browning-Ferris Indus. of Vermont, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal,

BBB, GES UD. TIT (RGGD) nceccceccccccscscoccsccccsvecscscecceees 15, 20

Cheevers v. Clark, 449 S.E.2d 528 (Ga. App. 1994)........22
Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115 (1992)4, 11

Cooper Industries, Inc., v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532
ee 15

County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 (1998) .. 8, 11,
16

Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327 (1986)...........c000000 8,11
DeShaney v. Winnebago County D.S.S., 489 U.S. 189
Isaiah ieinrterccttectneneeencsnenneasnenetneesencencessecess 8
Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614 (1991)23
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). .........4.. 4
Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726 (1963) .......ccccscesereeeees 10
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) ........ccccccccceeeeeeees 16
Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 119 Cal. App. 3d 757, 174
SE aT Dacccicnsoncnssccccnscnnsscnsecscecscenseeecessscneet 18

Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415 (1994)....... 12, 20
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) .........cccccccceseeeeees 9

iv

Mattison v. Dallas Carrier Corp., 947 F.2d 95 (4th Cir.

| 22
McKlesky v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) .......-ecesesereeneees 23
Missouri Pacific Ry. v. Humes, 115 U.S. 512(1885)...4, 13
Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494 (1977).....10
Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18

How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1856).....-.-.-cceceseserseeensnenenenees 12
Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Ballard, 749 So.2d 483

he. 2GDD) ccccccscsccssesscscsssscssesssninesenesnesssensssessssnssnensseninees 22
Pacific Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1

|, | ee passim
Parklane Hoisery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322 (1979) ....8, 23
Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 701 (1976) .........-ccereeees 10, 14
Ring v. Arizona, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (2002) .........:seserereeeneees 23
Romo v. Ford Motor Co., 99 Cal. App. 4th 1115, 122

Cal. Retr.2d 139 (2002) .........ceorccscsecscsceesecenecsnseecessecoes 18

Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Seegers, 207 U.S. 73 (1907)5, 8
Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v. Danaher, 238

UB. GBB (IGEGD cccrcccsncscccsesecesscersesesnssesenscremasnesmenennsssasenes 7
St. Louis, I.M. & S.R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63

|, 6,8
Standard Oil Co. of Ind. v. Missouri, 224 U.S. 270 (1912) 6
Tuttle v. Raymond, 494 A.2d 1353 (Me. 1985)...........++. 22
TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp., 509

US, 46S (BGDG) accrcccreccseeccsescssesesssnssesssssssssssssneseseed passim
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997).......... 4,11
Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909)........... 7
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937).......10

Vv

Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 327 (1986) .......--csvess00 16
PN seresedcenbanricnsestneninenenasentenatenenenasensastnaninsensseesnemenenast 8
Williamson v. Lee Optical, 348 U.S. 483, 488 (1955).......10
STATUTES
a passim
Ore. Rev. Stat. § 30.925(3)(g) (1991) FE 22
Utah Code Ann. § 78-18-1(1)(D) .....2...ccccccceseseseseeneeenenees 16
Utah Code Ann. 31A-26-301 et S09. .....-.vesssseesssuesssveeesees 18
Utah Code Ann. 76-10-1602(4) ......:ssessssssesesseesseneeneenes 18
a 18
OTHER AUTHORITIES

Joe S. Cecil, Valerie P. Hans, and Elizabeth C. Wiggins,
Citizen Comprehension of Difficult Issues: Lessons from

Civil Jury Trials, 40 Am. U. L. Rev. 728 (1991)......... 25
John Hart Ely, DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST (1980) ....... 4
John Guinther, THE JURY IN AMERICA (1988)............... 24

Oliver W. Holmes, COLLECTED LEGAL PAPERS (1920) .24

Charles Jared Knight State-Law Punitive Damage Schemes
And The Seventh Amendment Right To Jury Trial In The

Federal Courts, 14 Rev. of Litig. 657 (1995)............... 23
Michael J. Phillips, Another Look at Economic Substantive

Due Process, 1987 Wis. L. Rev. 265 .......cc.cccsesecsesseeees 10
Richard A. Posner, OVERCOMING LAW (1995)............. 10
Richard A. Posner, THE FEDERAL COURTS: CRISIS AND

| EE ee ae NE 10

William H. Rehnquist, THE SUPREME COURT: How IT
ey ee Oe PT Pecnccccscncsersemnentunsentecescemenesmmianees 10

eee eee

}
vi

Michael L. Rustad, Unraveling Punitive Damages: Current
Data and Further Inquiry, 1998 Wis. L. Rev. 15. ......20

Alan Howard Scheiner, Judicial Assessment of Punitive
Damages, the Seventh Amendment and the Politics of Jury
Power, 91 Colum. L. Rev. 142, 146-56 (1991)..........0+. 8

Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade,
Assessing Punitive Damages (With Notes On Cognition
And Valuation In Law), 107 Yale L.J. 2071(1998)......25

No. 01-1229
IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE CO.,
Petitioner,
Vv.

CURTIS B. CAMPBELL AND INEZ PREECE CAMPBELL,

Respondents.

On Writ Of Certiorari to the
Supreme Court of Utah

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF THE
ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS OF AMERICA
IN SUPPORT OF THE RESPONDENTS

IDENTITY AND INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE

The Association of Trial Lawyers of America
[“ATLA”] respectfully submits this brief as amicus
curiae. Letters of consent of the parties to the filing of
amicus briefs have been filed with the Court.!

ATLA is a voluntary national bar association
whose approximately 50,000 trial lawyer members

l Pursuant to Rule 37.6, Amicus discloses that no counsel for
a party authored any part of this brief, nor did any person or entity
other than Amicus Curiae, its members, or its counsel make a
monetary contribution to the preparation or submission of this
brief.

2

primarily represent individual plaintiffs in civil actions.
Some plaintiffs have been harmed by misconduct
deemed so egregious that state law permits juries to
award punitive damages for the purpose of
punishment and deterrence.

In ATLA’s view, the fairness of such awards is
best assured by fair procedures. The proposition that
the amount of punitive damages is additionally limited
by substantive due process is both unwarranted and
unworkable. ATLA members, whose professional lives
are devoted to working with America’s trial courts and
juries, believe that clear and appropriate guidance to
jurors will best enable them to carry out their duty to
assess punitive damages fairly and responsibly.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

1. This Court should overrule its prior holding in BMW
of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), that
substantive due process imposes a limit on the amount
of a punitive damage award arrived at under
procedures that comport with fundamental fairness.
The precedents relied upon by the Court do not
support such a radical expansion of the substantive
component of the Due Process Clause. The Court's
holding disregards the Court’s own considered
reluctance to expand the open-ended reach of
substantive due process and hearkens back to the
discredited Lochner era of judicial activism.

Federal substantive due process review adds
little to the protections against excessive punitive
damage awards already provided by state courts
employing standards developed at common law. To the
extent that the constitutional standard is equivalent to

—

3

common-law excessiveness it merely places this Court
in the position of a Court of Additional Appeals from
state courts. Constitutional review of punitive damages
cannot provide more detailed or precise rules without
abandoning the roots of due process in traditional
practice and appearing to impose the personal
convictions of the majority of the Court.

Federal substantive due process review also

entangles this Court in matters of state law and policy
that are appropriately left to state courts and
legislatures.
2. Protection against arbitrary and excessive punitive
awards is best accomplished by requiring that the
factors that are relevant to assessing an appropriate
amount of damages be submitted to juries,
accompanied by clear and specific instructions. This
Court has long recognized the importance of
appropriate jury instruction in protecting the rights of
litigants.

Properly instructed, juries are clearly capable of
carrying out their duty to assess punitive damages
fairly and responsibly. Empirical studies
overwhelmingly demonstrate that juries make
decisions based on the evidence presented to them,
conscientiously follow the trial court's instructions, and
render verdicts that generally conform to the outcomes
that judges themselves would return. Attacks on the
capacity of juries to carry out their responsibilities
within the law are not supported by objective research.

—

ARGUMENT

I. THIS COURT SHOULD OVERRULE ITS PRIOR
HOLDING THAT THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE PLACES

+

SUBSTANTIVE LIMITS ON PUNITIVE DAMAGE
AWARDS.

A. Substantive Due Process Review of Punitive
Damage Awards Lacks Support in_ the
Constitutional Text,. Historica! Practice and
this Court’s Precedent.

Not long after the Fourteenth Amendment was
added to our Constitution, this Court upheld a
Missouri penalty statute as well as the long-recognized
authority of juries under the common law to award
“exemplary” damages “whenever malice, gross neglect,
or oppression” accompany wrongful injury. Missouri
Pacific Ry. Co. v. Humes, 115 U.S. 512, 521 (1885). Justice
Field pointedly told petitioners that the Due Process
Clause must not be used as “a means of bringing to the
test of the decision of this court the abstract opinions of
every unsuccessful litigant in a state court of the justice
of the decision against him.” Id. at 520.

The Court has been particularly vigilant against
expansion of the substantive component of the Due
Process Clause, for compelling reasons:

[T]he Court has always been reluctant to expand
the concept of substantive due process because
guideposts for responsible decisionmakers in this
uncharted area are scarce and open-ended. The
doctrine of judicial self-restraint requires us to
exercise the utmost care whenever we are asked to
break new ground in this field.

Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125 (1992);
Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720 (1997).2

2 The very phrase “substantive due process” has been called “a
contradiction in terms -- sort of like ‘green pastel redness.” John
Hart Ely, DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST 18 (1980).

—_

5

Nevertheless, the Court did indeed break new
ground in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S.
559 (1996), overturning for the first time an award of
punitive damages deemed so “grossly excessive” as to
violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Id. at 562.

ATLA respectfully urges this Court, upon
reconsideration of its precedents, legal traditions, and
in view of its subsequent decisions, to overrule BMW to

_ the extent that it requires courts to enforce substantive

due process limits on the amount of punitive damage
awards imposed using procedures that comport with
fundamental fairness.

The majority opinion in BMW relied on the
proposition, hinted at in Pacific Mutual Life Ins. Co. v.
Haslip, 499 U.S. 1 (1991), and explicitly stated in the
plurality opinion in TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance
Resources Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 453-54 (1993), that “the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
imposes substantive limits beyond which penalties may
not go.” ‘

The five cases cited in TXO and referenced in
BMW, 517 U.S., at 652, offer scant support for imposing
federal substantive limits on jury awards of punitive
damages under the Due Process Clause.

Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Seegers, 207 U.S. 73, 78
(1907), upheld a South Carolina statute imposing a $50
penalty on a common carrier for failing to settle a claim
for a lost shipment valued at $1.75. The statute was not
challenged as a violation of due process, but as a denial
of equal protection, singling out carriers for an
unreasonable penalty not imposed on other debtors. Id.
at 76. The Court upheld the penalty, although it “may
be large as compared with the value of the shipment,”

6

because it served in part “as compensation of the
claimant for the trouble and expense of the suit.” Id. at
77-78.

St. Louis, I.M. & S.R. Co. v. Williams, 251 U.S. 63
(1919) upheld a statutory penalty of $75 plus costs of
suit against the railroad for each of two schoolgirls who
were overcharged in their fares by 66 cents.
Significantly, the court stated that the validity of the
penalty was not to be judged by the ratio of the penalty
to the overcharge. Rather “considered with due regard
for the interests of the public, the numberless
opportunities for committing the offense, and the need
for securing uniform adherence to established
passenger rates, we think it properly cannot be said to
be so severe and oppressive as to be wholly
disproportioned to the offense or abviously
unreasonable.” Id. at 66-67.

Standard Oil Co. of Ind. v. Missouri, 224 U.S. 270,
286 (1912) upheld a penalty under a Missouri anti-trust
statute amounting to $50,000, “which some of the
Missouri court thought should have been a million
dollars.” Id. at 282. The Court pointed out that it is the
responsibility of the state supreme court under the
common law to avoid excessive damages. But there is
no due process review of the amount of damages
imposed by the state court under fair procedures.

The 14th Amendment guarantees that the
defendant shall be given that character of notice
and opportunity to be heard which is essential to
due process of law. When that has been done, the
requirements of the Constitution are met, and it is
not for this court to determine whether there has
been an erroneous construction of statute or
common law.

Id. at 287.

In Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co. v.
Danaher, 238 U.S. 482 (1915), the Court set aside a $6,300
penalty imposed under an Arkansas statute against a
telephone company for discriminatory pricing and
service as “plainly arbitrary and oppressive.” However,
the due process violation did not lie in the amount of
the penalty, but in the absence of any intentional or
reckless wrongdoing or departure from any standard
of conduct by the company or any means of testing the
reasonableness of the regulation in court. Id. at 491.

Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909),
upheld $1.6 million in penalties imposed under a Texas
anti-trust statute. “We can only interfere with such
legislation and judicial action of the states enforcing it if
the fines imposed are so grossly excessive as to amount
to a deprivation of property without due process of
law.” The Court found the »enalty not excessive, solely
on the basis of the wealth of the defendant, which
“amounted to more than forty millions of dollars, as
testified by its president.” Id. at 112.

ATLA submits that these decisions provide little
support for the proposition that a punitive damage
awards arrived at under fair procedures may violate
substantive due process.

The objection is not simply that these are
Lochner-era_ cases.> Without exception, the cited
decisions involve statutory penalties. As Justice Souter

3 The fact that the Lochner dissenters voted with the court in these
cases is not surprising. Cf. TXO, 509 U.S., at 455. The Court upheld
the penalty in every case except Danaher, which did not address
excessiveness at all, See BMW, 517 US., at 01 (Scalia, J.,

dissenting).

a De

8

explained in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833
(1998), the Court's substantive due process
jurisprudence has addressed legislation and executive
action, developing a distinct mode of analysis for each.
Id. at 846. The Court has no historical or constitutional
framework for analyzing the substantive due process
claims raised within the judicial branch of government
by civil litigants whose liability for punitive damages
comports with state law and was imposed under
fundamentally fair procedures.

To the extent the precedents reviewed above
support substantive due process limits on statutory
penalties, they do not and should not extend to civil
jury awards. First, the Court was addressing statutory
penalties established in advance without regard to the
circumstances of any particular violation. So, for
example in Williams and Seaboard, the defendants
argued, essentially, that the statutes afforded too little
discretion, i.e., that the penalty was disproportionate as
applied, in view of the relatively small losses suffered
by the specific plaintiffs. Jury awards of punitive
damages, by contrast, are tailored to the circumstances
of each individual case, serving the State’s interest in
“meaningful individualized assessment of appropriate
deterrence and retribution.” Haslip, 499 US., at 20.

Second, the Due Process Clause is, of course,
directed at government action. Daniels v. Williams, 474
U.S. 327, 331-32 (1986); DeShaney v. Winnebago County
D.S.S., 489 U.S. 189 (1989). The jury, however, has
historically served as a shield between the government
and citizens. Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322,
343 (1979) (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting); Alan Howard
Scheiner, Judicial Assessment of Punitive Damages, the
Seventh Amendment and the Politics of Jury Power, 91
Colum. L. Rev. 142, 146-56 (1991). The jury, of course,

9

must act in accord with fair procedures. But the Court
should not impose federal substantive due process
limits on the fruits of the jury’s labors based solely on
the Court’s willingness early in the last Century to
scrutinize products of state legislatures.

Finally, the legacy of that historical period
argues powerfully against embarking on a similar
campaign against punitive damage awards upheld by
state courts.

Justice White, writing for the Court in Bowers v.
Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), warned:

The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to
iliegitimacy when it deals with judge-made
constitutional law having little or no cognizable
roots in the language or design of the Constitution.
That this is so was painfully demonstrated by the
face-off between the Executive and the Court in the
1930's, which resulted in the repudiation of much
of the substantive gloss that the Court had placed
on the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. There should be,
therefore, great resistance to expand _ the
substantive reach of those Clauses .. .

Id. at 194-95. Justice White was, of course, referring to
the era named for Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45
(1905). Ignoring Justice Holmes’ admonition that “the
Constitution is not intended to embody a particular
economic theory,” Id. at 75 (Holmes, J., dissenting), the
Court used substantive due process to invalidate state
economic regulations deemed by the Court as “clearly
arbitrary and unreasonable, having no substantial
relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general
welfare.” Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 395
(1926).

10

Few doctrines have been as firmly rejected by
this Court. See, e.g., Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726,
730- 31 (1963) (“we emphatically refuse to go back to
the time when courts ‘used the Due Process Clause to
strike down state laws, regulatory of business or
industrial conditions, because they may be unwise,
improvident, or out of harmony with a particular
school of thought.”), quoting Williamson v. Lee Optical,
348 U.S. 483, 488 (1955). Lochner is now viewed as “one
of the most ill-starred decisions that [the Court] ever
rendered. William H. Rehnquist, THE SUPREME COURT:
How It Was, How It Is 205 (1987). In the years
following its unlamented end in West Coast Hotel Co. v.
Parish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937), the Lochner era has served as
a cautionary reminder of the wisdom of “caution and
restraint” on the part of the Court. Moore v. City of East
Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977).4

The Court has most emphatically rejected any
expansionist constitutional reasoning that “would make
of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be
superimposed upon whatever systems may already be
administered by the States.” Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693,
701 (1976). The Due Process Clause, the Court has
stated, must not be used “to impose federal duties that
are analogous to those traditionally imposed by state

4 Judge Posner has written that substantive due process still “stinks
in the nostrils ot modern liberals and modern conservatives alike.”
Richard A_ l’osner, OVERCOMING LAW 179-80 (1995). Yet, he
observes, “there is a movement afoot (among scholars, not as yet
among, judges) to make the majority opinion in Lochner the
centerpiece of a new activist jurisprudence.” Richard A. Posner,
THE FEDERA! COURTS: CRISIS AND REFORM 209 n.25 (1985). See also
Michael J. Phillips, Another Look at Economic Substantive Due Process,
1987 Wis. L. Rev. 265, 266 n.7, offering notable examples o* that
“movement.”

11

tort law.” Collins v. City of Harker Heights, supra, 503 U.S.
at 128. Nor should it “supplant traditional tort law in
laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for
injuries that attend living together in society.” Lewis,
523 US., at 848, quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 US.
327, 332 (1986). ATLA urges this Court to reconsider its
holding in BMW in the light of its own wise advice.

The Court looks to “Our Nation's history, legal
traditions, and practices [to] provide the crucial
guideposts . . . that direct and restrain our exposition of
the Due Process Clause.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521
U.S. 702, 721 (1997). The majority opinion in BMW leads
this Court into foreign territory — substantive control of
state court damage awards. It is an area in which the
Court acts without solid support in precedent and
historical practice and which has traditionally been
governed by state courts and legislatures.

B. Substantive Due Process Review Adds Little to
Judicial Safeguards Against Excessive Awards
Already Provided By Common Law.

The Court might well overcome its reluctance to
extend substantive due process to this field of law
historically administered by the states if, as Justice
Scalia has remarked, “it had something useful to say.”
BMW, 517 US., at 602 (Scalia, J., dissenting). ATLA
respectfully submits that review of punitive damage
awards for gross excessiveness under the substantive
component of the Due Process Clause dues not - and
cannot — add significantly to the protection against
arbitrary awards already provided by state courts.

State courts, applying the principles of the
common-law, review punitive damage verdicts for
excessiveness. Indeed, this Court has held that such
review is so rooted in the common-law tradition and so

12

important a safeguard against arbitrary and excessive
verdicts, that it is required of state courts as a matter of
procedural due process. Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512
U.S. 415. 421-26 (1994).

This Court has not clearly differentiated
substantive due process excessiveness from common
law excessiveness. The Court's discussions suggest that
the two standards share common-law roots and are
roughly equivalent. The Cou eld in Haslip that the
common-law method of assessing punitive damages,
including judicial review “to ensure that it is
reasonable” compoits with due process. 499 U.S., at 15.
At the same time, the Court has steadfastly maintained
that its “constitutional calculus” is informed by a
“general concer[n] of reasonableness.” BMW, 517 US.,
at 583; TXO, 509 U.S., at 458; Haslip, 499 US., at 18. This
equivalence comports with the Court’s foundational
due process principle that “traditional practice provides
a touchstone for constitutional analysis.” Oberg, at 430,
citing Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement
Co., 18 How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1856).

However, a_ constitutional standard that
essentially duplicates state common-law review offers
little in the way of additional protection against
excessive awards, which is the Court’s apparent
objective. It merely transforms excessiveness into a
federal constitutional question and this Court into a
Court of Additional Appeals from state supreme
courts.

The argument that a federal level of review is
necessary to correct erroneous or overly deferential
application of excessiveness review by state courts is
not persuasive. This Court has long rejected the notion
that asserted errors by state courts applying state law

13

are reviewable as federal due process violations. See
Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Humes, supra, 115 U.S., at 520-
21. Moreover, this Court has already made clear:

[S]tate law generally imposes a requirement that
punitive damages be “reasonable” . . . [However,]
we do not suggest that a defendant has a
substantive due process right to a correct
determination of the “reasonableness” of a punitive
damages award.

TXO, 509 U.S., at 458, n.24.

The Court has also suggested that the federal
due process standard of excessiveness might be less
stringent than the common-law standard. The plurality
in TXO stated that “violation of a state law
‘reasonableness’ requirement would not, however,
necessarily establish that the award is so ‘grossly
excessive’ as to violate the Federal Constitution.” 509
US., at 458, n.24. If that is the case, it would appear
even less likely that substantive due process review can
remedy problems of excessiveness that concern the
Court. More importantly, to enforce a federal outer
limit on punitive damage awards that is not tethered to
the common-law standard raises concerns that
substantive due process may simply mask a “gut
feeling” that a particular award is too much. As Justice
Kennedy warned:

A reviewing court employing this formulation
comes close to relying upon nothing more than its
own subjective reaction to a particular punitive
damages award in deciding whether the award
violates the Constitution. This type of review, far
from imposing meaningful, law-like restraints on
jury excess, could become as fickle as the process it

- is designed to superintend.

Id. at 466-67 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part).

14

Nor can it be argued that a federal constitutional
limit on the amount of punitive damages permits this
Court to issue more refined and specific rules to deal
with excessive awards. The Court has repeatedly
turned away entreaties to establish a categorical or
formulaic test, emphasizing that the due process clause
simply cannot provide such precision. Haslip, 499 US.,
at 18 (“We need not, and indeed we cannot, draw a
mathematical bright line between the constitutionally
acceptable and the constitutionally unacceptable that
would fit every case.”) (emphasis added); BMW, 517
US., at 582-83; TXO, 509 U.S., at 458.

This response highlights the difficulty of
employing substantive due process to regulate punitive
damage awards. Mere “platitudes,” as Justice Scalia
points out, provide no useful guidance to the state and
lower federal courts. BMW, 517 US., at 606 (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). However, the more specific and categon.cal
the limitations this Court might impose, the less they
resemble constitutionally mandated due process and
the more they simply appear to reflect the predilections
of a majority of the Court.

Finally, there would appear to be no natural
stopping place for the Court’s venture into applying
economic substantive due process to jury awards. As
the Court has noted, there are many issues entrusted to
the broad discretion of juries, including various types
of noneconomic damages, that resist mathematical
precision. See Haslip, 499 US., at 20. Opening the door
to substantive review of jury decisionmaking may well
invite disappointed state court litigants of many stripes
to seek to make the Due Process Clause “a font of tort
law to be superimposed upon . . . States.” Paul v. Davis,
424 U.S. 693, 701 (1976). It is a door which this Court
should shut.

_

owes

ee -

15

C. To The Extent The Eighth Amendment Applies
To Excessive Punitive Awards, Substantive
Due Process Is Inapplicable

This Court’s opinion in Cooper Industries, Inc., v.
Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424 (2001), presents
an additional reason for the Court to overrule BMW.
The Court in Cooper Industries described punitive
damages as “quasi-criminal” penalties which “operate
as ‘private fines,” 532 U.S., at 432. The Court further
stated:

Despite the broad discretion that States poSsess
with respect to the imposition of criminal penalties
and punitive damages, the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution imposes substantive limits on that
discretion. That Clause makes the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition against excessive fines
and cruel and unusual punishments applicable to
the States.

Id. at 433-34. Although the matter is not free from
doubt,°, the quoted language strongly suggests that the
Court now views the Excessive Fines Clause as
applicable, through the Fourteenth Amendment, to
state court awards of punitive damages.

If the Excessive Fines Clause is now available for
defendants to challenge the excessiveness of punitive
damages, then the Eighth Amendment “provides an
explicit textual source of constitutional protection” and

5 The Court in Cooper Industries did not explicitly overrule its
holding in Browning-Ferris Industries, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 492
U.S. 257, 260 (1989), that the “Excessive Fines Clause does not
apply to awards of punitive damages in cases between private
parties.”

16

claims of unconstitutional government action must be
analyzed under “that Amendment, not the more
generalized notion of ‘substantive due process.
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 (1989). See also id. at
395 n.10 (convicted prisoners claiming excessive force
may not rely on substantive due process because any
protection substantive due process might afford is, “at
best redundant of that provided by the Eighth
Amendment,” citing Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 327
(1986)); County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 842-
43 (1998).

D. Substantive Due Process Intrudes Upon
Matters Of State Law And Policy Which Are

Best Left To State Courts And Legislatures.

Substantive due process review of punitive
damage awards necessarily invites this Court to
interpose its own views regarding matters of state law
and policy. The Court in BMW sought to establish due
process “guideposts” — reprehensibility, ratio, and
comparable sanctions - which might appear at first
blush to command uniform agreement. However, “their

effect is to establish federal standards
governing the hitherto exclusively state law of
damages.” BMW, 517 U.S., at 605 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

Reprehensibility, for example, beyond the broad
proposition that misconduct causing personal injury is
more blameworthy than that resulting in economic
harm, see id. at 576, masks important state policy issues.

Outrage reflects values, and is not uniformly
scaled among Americans in all parts of the nation. The
people of Utah, for example, may view drunk driving
as particularly worthy of punishment and deterrence.
See Utah Code Ann. § 78-18-1(1)(b) (exempting civil
suits involving driving while intoxicated from statutory

17

restrictions on punitive damages.) The people of West
Virginia, as was brought to this Court's attention in
TXO, view with particular outrage the fraudulent
exploitation of the state’s mineral resources. The
residents of a state with a large industrial labor force
may react with a greater degree of outrage at willful
disregard of workplace safety. Other states may assign
particular blameworthiness to fraudulent schemes that
prey on senior citizens.

State courts and legislatures bear the
responsibility of ensuring that the law reflects the
values of the state’s people. It is surely not the role of
this Court to declare, as a matter of constitutional law,
that a state takes the safety of its highways or its
workplaces overly seriously.

Although the Court's “ratio” guidepost can be
expressed mathematically, the Court emphatically
rejected the imposition of a bright-line limit. BMW, 517
U.S., at 582-83. The Court suggested that various
circumstances may warrant a relatively high ratio of
punitive to compensatory damages, such as where a
particularly egregious act results in a small economic
loss. Id. Thus this guidepost may involve the Court in
value judgments similar to reprehensibility.

The “sanctions for comparable misconduct”
guidepost presents even greater potential intrusion into
matters of state law. First, the identification of
appropriately comparable sanctions is not a mere
mechanical process. For example, where the defendant
has marketed a dangerously defective vehicle, resulting
in fatalities, should the relevant sanction be the
nominal fine provided for in the Vehicle Code or the
penalty for negligent homicide? See Romo v. Ford Motor
Co., 99 Cal. App. 4th 1115, 1159, 122 Cal.Rptr.2d 139,

18

164 (2002). Indeed, in this case, State Farm argues
strenuously to this Court that it was deprived of due
process because the Utah court erred in its
determination of the penalties provided for comparable
misconduct under the Utah Unfair Claims Practices
Act, Utah Code Ann. 31A-26-301 et seq., the Utah
Pattern of Unlawful Activity Act, Utah Code Ann. 76-
10-1602(4), and various provisions of the Utah Criminal
Code. Brief of Petitioner, at 38-41.

Second, proper evaluation of civil or criminal
sanctions under state law frequently requires
interpretation of the relevant statute. In this case, for
example, State Farm argues to this Court that the Utah
Supreme Court erred in interpreting Utah Code Ann. -
76-3-303 as authorizing imprisonment for misconduct
comparable to State Farm’s. Brief of Petitioner, at 40.

Finally, civil and criminal penalties do not exist
in isolation from punitive damages. Some states, as a
matter of policy, may rely more heavily on punitive
damage awards precisely because they are perceived as
a more effective punishment and deterrent than other
penalties. As the California Court of Appeal stated:
It is precisely because monetary penalties under
government regulations prescribing business
standards or the criminal law are so inadequate
and ineffective as deterrents against a manufacturer
and distributor of defective products that punitive
damages must be of sufficient amount to
discourage such practices.

Grimshaw « Ford Motor Co., 119 Cal. App. 3d 757, 820,
174 Cal. Kptr. 348, 389 (1981).

One need not agree with the wisdom of any of a
state’s policy choices to recognize that they are state
policies and state choices. Federal judges

le

19

countermanding those policies under the rubric of
substantive due process represents a dramatic affront
to the principles of federalism.

II. PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS PROHIBITS COURTS
FROM EXCLUDING EVIDENCE AND REFUSING CLEAR
JURY INSTRUCTIONS ON ISSUES RELEVANT TO THE
APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF PUNITIVE DAMAGES.

A. Proper Jury Instructions Are Key to Preventing
Arbitrary or Biased Verdicts.

Rejecting the pursuit of a chimerical substantive
due process limit need not leave defendants facing
punitive damages “run wild.” Haslip, 499 US., at 18.
This Court has already recognized that procedural
safeguards, most especially clear and_ specific
instructions to the jury regarding the proper evaluation
of the evidence and application of the factors relevant
to the amount of punitive damages, are the most
effective means of protecting against arbitrary awards.

Members of this Court have expressed concern
with the frequency and size of punitive damage
awards. See, e.g., Haslip, 499 U.S., at 61-62 (O’Connor, J.
dissenting) (“Recent years . . . have witnessed an
explosion in the frequency and size of punitive damage
awards); TXO, 50% US., at 500 (O'Connor, J.,
dissenting) (similar).

ATLA submits that, while a few awards may
raise judicial eyebrows, there is no evidence of a
widespread, dramatic increase in punitive damages.
One salutary result of this Court’s attention to punitive
damage awards has been to prompt extensive empirical
research. Professor Michael Rustad offers a detailed
overview of the results of these studies, conducted by
respected and objective researchers using a variety of

20

data sets. The results uniformly demonstrate that
punitive damages generally are awarded relatively
infrequently and tend to be modest in amount. Michael
L. Rustad, Unraveling Punitive Damages: Current Data
and Further Inquiry, 1998 Wis. L. Rev. 15 (1998).

A comprehensive summary of this empirical
research is set forth in the Brief of Amici Curiae of
Certain Leading Social Scientists and Legal Scholars.

The members of the Court who have raised
concerns regarding punitive damages have also clearly
identified the root cause: woefully unguided juries.
Punitive damage awards become suspect where juries
are told “little more than . . . to do what they think is
best” and are “left largely to themselves in making this
important, and potentially devastating, decision.”
Browning-Ferris Indus. of Vermont, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal,
Inc., 492 U.S. 257, 281 (1989) (Brennan, J., concurring);
see also TXO, 509 US., at 474 (O’Connor, J., dissenting)
(noting that “the risk of prejudice, bias and caprice” in
jury decisions involving punitive awards is especially
high because “juries sometimes receive only vague and
amorphous guidance”).

The Court in Haslip recognized that jury
instructions which properly “enlightened the jury as to
the punitive damages’ nature and purpose” would
“reasonably accommodate[] [the defendant's] interest in
rational decisionmaking” as well as the state’s interest
“in meaningful individualized assessment of
appropriate deterrence and retribution.” 499 U.S., at 19-
20. As this Court has emphasized, jury instructions are
“a well established and, of course, important check
against excessive awards.” Oberg, 512 U.S., at 433.
Indeed, they are so important that a court’s failure to
give the jury appropriate instructions for assessing

21

punitive damages must be viewed as “inconsistent with
due process.” Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Crenshaw, 486
US. 71, 88 (1988) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and
concurring in judgment).

Despite this Court’s emphasis in Haslip on the
importance of effective jury instruction, Justice
O’Connor has observed, “many courts continue to
provide jurors with skeletal guidance that permits the
traditional guarantor of fairness—the jury itself-—-to be
converted into a source of caprice and bias.” TXO, 509
US., at 500-01 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). Ford Motor
Co. in its amicus brief informs this Court that some
courts persist in delivering “bare-bones” and skeletal
jury instructions. Brief of Ford Motor Co. at 22-23.
(citing examples). Indeed, although ATLA disagrees
with Ford’s specific substantive complaints, ATLA
agrees with Ford’s general proposition that, as this
Court has long recognized, “proper jury instructions
are crucial” to ensure that jury verdicts are consistent
with constitutional limits on state authority.” Id. at 20.

This Court should hold that a court’s refusal to
provide instructions reasonably calculated to enable the
jury to evaluate the evidence and apply the factors
relevant to the amount of punitive damages in
accordance with state law violates procedural due
process.

Unfortunately, the Court's substantive due
process decision in BMW does little to improve the
fairness and reliability of jury decisionmaking. The
focus of the majority’s opinion is to erect due process
“guideposts” to be applied by reviewing courts in
evaluating the excessiveness of punitive awards. The
criteria and evidence the Court deems important to the
appropriate amount of punitive damages need not be

22

presented to the jury at all. For reviewing courts to set
aside jury awards on the basis of facts and factors that
were not introduced at trial does nothing to improve
the fairness of punitive damages verdicts. Rather, this
process trivializes the ideal of trial by jury.

Justice O'Connor has cut to the heart of the
matter:

By giving these factors to juries, the State would be
providing them with some specific standards to
guide their discretion. This would substantially
enhance the fairness and rationality of the State's
punitive damages system.
Haslip, 499 US., at 57 (O'Connor, J., dissenting)
(referring to factors established by Alabama court).®

This Court should hold that, as a matter of
procedural due process, litigants are entitled to present
evidence and argument relevant to any factor affecting
the appropriate amount of punitive damages. Cf.
Mattison v. Dallas Carrier Corp., 947 F.2d 95, 108 (4th Cir.
1991) (A federal court “cannot consistent with the

6 Some states expressly provide that such evidence may be
introduced. See, e.g., Ore. Rev. Stat. § 30.925(3)(g) (1991) (in
assessing punitive damages in product liability actions, the jury
may consider “punitive damage awards to persons in situations
similar to the claimant's and the severity of criminal penalties to
which the defendant has been or may be subjected”); Tuttle v.
Raymond, 494 A.2d 1353, 1356 (Me. 1985) (defendant entitled to
present factfinder with evidence of any criminal punishment
imposed, as mitigating factor); Cheevers v. Clark, 449 S.E.2d 528 (Ga.
App. 1994) (defendant in personal injury suit seeking punitive
damages for harm caused by drunk driving permitted to read to
the jury the criminal penalties applicable if he were prosecuted);
Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Ballard, 749 So.2d 483, 488 (Fla.
1999) (punitive awards in other cases is a proper factor for juries to
consider in deciding the amount of punitive damages to award).

23

Seventh Amendment, evaluate a jury’s verdict based on
evidence that the jury was not permitted to consider at
trial or on a legal standard not given to the jury.”). See
also, Charles Jared Knight State-Law Punitive Damage
Schemes And The Seventh Amendment Right To Jury Trial
In The Federal Courts, 14 Rev. of Litig. 657, 698-703
(1995).

B. Juries Are Competent to Render Fair Verdicts
When Properly Instructed.

Our justice system entrusts many important
decisions to ordinary Americans sitting as jurors, even
where life and liberty are at stake. See Ring v. Arizona,
122 S.Ct. 2428 (2002) (statute allowing trial judge to
determine the presence of the aggravating factors
required for imposition of the death penalty violates
the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial); Apprendi v.
New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) (any fact that increases —
penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory
maximum must be submitted to the jury).

The Constitution values the role of the jury in
administering justice in both civil and criminal actions
and its capacity to tailor its decisions to the unique
circumstances of a case. See Edmonson v. Leesville
Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 624 (1991).

As this Court stated in a capital punishment case,

the inherent lack of predictability of jury decisions
does not justify their condemnation. On the
contrary, it is the jury's function to make the
difficult and uniquely human judgments that defy
codification and that ‘build discretion, equity and
flexibility into a legal system.’

McKlesky v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 331 (1987). See also
Parklane Hoisery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 343-44 (1979)

24

(Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“Trial by a jury of laymen
rather than by the sovereign’s judges was important to
the founders because juries represent the layman's
common sense, the ‘passional elements in our nature,’
and thus keep the administration of law in accord with
the wishes and feelings of the community.”) (quoting
Oliver W. Holmes, COLLECTED LEGAL PAPERS 237
(1920)).

Empirical studies overwhelmingly demonstrate
the wisdom of citizen participation in the justice
system. One of the largest empirical studies of actual
jury performance, sponsored by the Roscoe Pound
Foundation, found that:

Juries overwhelmingly take their duties seriously
. . . Juries are evidence-oriented . . . with the
personalities of the participants in the trial and
other subsidiary matters only of minor concern to
them . . . Juries as a group apparently also
understand enough of the law that they are able to
arrive at legally supportable verdicts in a very large
majority of cases .. . The evidence also strongly
suggest that jurors rarely increase the size of an
award because they think the defendant has ample
insurance to cover it, nor do they ordinarily make

awards out of sympathy.

John Guinther, THE JURY IN AMERICA 102 (1988). The
study concludes that “juries are, on the whole,
remarkably adept as triers of fact. Virtually every study
of them, regardless of research method, has reached
that conclusion.” Id. at 230.

In the years since that study, a wide array of
social science research projects has examined the
performance of juries in actual trials. A survey of the
growing body of empirical findings, conducted under
the auspices of the Division of Research at the Federal

25

Judicial Center, found that “doubts about jury
competence expressed by jury critics stand in sharp
contrast to the judgments of scholars who conduct
research on jury decisionmaking.” Joe S. Cecil, Valerie
P. Hans, and Elizabeth C. Wiggins, Citizen
Comprehension of Difficult Issues: Lessons from Civil Jury
Trials, 40 Am. U. L. Rev. 728, 744-45 (1991).

Additional recent empirical studies confirm that
juries are capable of deciding cases on the basis of the
evidence, that they conscientiously follow the trial
court's instructions, and that their verdicts conform in
large measure with the results that judge’s themselves
would return.

A detailed examination of these objective
empirical studies is presented to this Court in an
amicus brief prepared by many of the researchers
themselves in the Brief of Amici Curiae of Certain
Leading Social Scientists and Legal Scholars.

Those who attack juries as “inherently” arbitrary
can point to no persuasive objective studies of real
juries. See Brief of Certain Leading Business
Corporations as Amici Curiae. That attack relies
heavily on a study, partially funded by Exxon,
involving mock-jury decisionmaking, published in Cass
R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade,
Assessing Punitive Damages (With Notes On Cognition
And Valuation In Law), 107 Yale L.J. 2071(1498).

ATLA submits that, to the extent that study
offers any useful insight, it is that clear and precise jury
instructions are needed for fair and reasonable jury
awards of punitive damages

The study gathered paid participants at a hotel
where they were given packets containing general

26

directions along with ten scenarios of about 200 words
each describing~ personal injury lawsuits against
medium and large corporations. Participants were

asked how outrageous they found the defendant's -

behavior, the level of deserved punishment on a scale
of 0 to 6, and a dollar amount of punitive damages they
would award. Id. at 2095. Most participants completed
their questionnaires in 30 to 45 minutes. Id. at 2146.

The results showed that participants were in
close agreement with respect to the degree of
outrageousness of the misconduct and the scaled level
of punishment deserved. Id. at 2097-98. The dollar
amounts participants would award as _ punitive
damages, however, varied greatly. Id. at 2099-2100.

Based on these results, the researchers
recommended that the responsibility of assessing the
amount of damages be taken out of the hands of juries
in cases involving punitive damages, pain and
suffering, libel, sexual harassment and other civil rights
violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress,
administrative penalties, and contingent valuation. Id.
at 2074. Judges, the researchers stated, were also unable
to map a consistent dollar amount to particular
misconduct. Id. at 2127. Instead, the researchers
recommended that this determination be made by
“technocratic” experts. Id. at 2079.

In ATLA’s view, the study most powerfully
demonstrates what this Court already observed: that
unlimited jury discretion and inadequate guidance
from the court “may invite extreme results.” Haslip, 499
US., at 18; see also TXO, 509 US., at 475 (O’Connor, J.,
dissenting) (“it cannot be denied that the lack of clear
guidance heightens the risk that arbitrariness, passion,
or bias will replace dispassionate deliberation as the

SE

27

basis for the jury’s verdict.”). Certainly the performance
of test participants asked to make snap decisions based
on minimal information, without evidence and
argument from both sides, and without detailed jury
instructions as to the appropriate factors for assessing
punitive damages, bears this out.

Additionally, the study offers no support for the
proposition that arbitrariness of awards can be
addressed by requiring appellate judges to determine
excessiveness as a matter of substantive due process.
The researchers themselves point out that:

Judges are not likely to be able to capture the
community's sentiments with respect to either
dollar awards or punitive intent. . . . The most
important point is that judges too are likely to have
difficulty in mapping normative judgments onto
dollar amounts, and while judicial judgments may
reduce variance, there is likely to be a continuing
problem of erratic judgments or the use of anchors
that introduce arbitrariness of their own.
Id. at 2127-28.

At the very heart of the attacks on juries, and
implicit in the notion that judges must be armed with
substantive due process authority to override jury
verdicts, there lies a myth: The lawless jury. Two
centuries of jurisprudence and extensive recent
empirical research flatly contradict this dark and
cynical portrait of Americans who take their place in
the jury box. The myth is wrong. Due process of law
finds no higher expression than in an informed and
independent civil jury.

28

CONCLUSION

For the above reasons, the decision of the court of
appeals should be affirmed.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeffrey Robert White
1050 31st St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 965-3500
ATLA Senior Amicus Counsel
Counsel of Record
October 17, 2002

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/brief%3Amicro_IA40385014_0549%3A36. Public record. Not legal advice.