Russ Feingold: “this legislation would not only curtail the power of juries to determine the amount of punitive damages to be awarded…”

“this legislation would not only curtail the power of juries to determine the amount of punitive damages to be awarded; it would also prevent certain evidence relating to damages from even being presented to the jury in the first place. That has something to do with the right to trial by jury. Section 107 provides that evidence relating to the punitive damages, for example, evidence of willful misconduct, would be inadmissible during the compensatory damages stage of the proceeding. That section 107 also provides that evidence relating to a defendant's wealth, which I think is clearly a relevant factor in assessing what level of punitive damages should be assessed, could not be presented to the jury, which, in my view, is another serious derogation from the right to trial by jury. Other proposals which may soon be added to this measure would do even more of the same. They would prevent juries from making punitive damages awards entirely, leaving those decisions not to the jury but to judges alone. All of these proposals, in my view, evidence a clear and very disturbing distrust of the jury system itself.”