The judge reduced the compensatory damages to $1 million, which still seems a bit high, especially since the death of one young man and the permanent disability of another had rated less than $200,000 in the first lawsuit. But the real shocker in the case against State Farm was the punitive damage award: $145 million.

"We have no doubt that there is a presumption against an award that has a 145-to-1 ratio" of punitive to compensatory damages, the Supreme Court said. It concluded that the verdict violated the 14th Amendment's guarantee of due process because it "was neither reasonable nor proportionate to the wrong committed." Rather, "it was an irrational and arbitrary deprivation" of the defendant's property.

One of three dissenters, Justice Antonin Scalia, argued that "the Due Process Clause provides no substantive protections against 'excessive' or 'unreasonable' awards of punitive damages." He added that the Court's "punitive damages jurisprudence . . . is insusceptible of principled application."

Given the Court's hemming and hawing about "concrete constitutional limits" on the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, Scalia may be right. But the same lack of principle is apparent in the very concept of punitive damages, which invites irrational and arbitrary awards by muddying the distinction between civil and criminal justice.

While both systems help deter antisocial behavior, the focus of civil justice is supposed to be compensation, making victims whole. Yet punitive "damages" (which are not really damages at all) are explicitly aimed at retribution. No wonder juries are confused.

Punitive damages serve the same function as criminal fines -- punishment and deterrence -- but with much less statutory guidance and fewer protections for the accused. It's not surprising that a majority of the Supreme Court thinks such punishments should be governed by the requirements of due process. Surely they should be governed by something other than the whims of juries.