Remittitur

Remittitur is a procedural device in U.S. civil litigation that allows a trial judge (or, more rarely, an appellate court) to lower a jury's monetary damages award when the judge finds the verdict excessive as a matter of law. Rather than simply striking the verdict, the court typically issues a conditional order: the plaintiff may either accept the reduced amount or face a new trial on damages. This gives plaintiffs a choice and conserves judicial resources.

The doctrine traces to early federal practice and was firmly endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474 (1935), which upheld remittitur while rejecting its mirror image, additur (judicial increase of an inadequate award), as a violation of the Seventh Amendment's right to a jury trial in federal court. Many state courts, operating outside the Seventh Amendment, do permit additur.

In federal practice, remittitur is generally invoked through a motion for new trial under Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Standards vary by circuit: some apply the "maximum recovery rule" (reducing the award to the highest amount the jury could lawfully have given), others ask whether the verdict "shocks the conscience" or is grossly excessive. Punitive damages awards are also subject to constitutional review under BMW of North America v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), and State Farm v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), which set due-process limits on the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages.

Key features:

• Conditional: the plaintiff can refuse the reduction and demand retrial.
• One-way: federal courts cannot raise an award against a defendant's wishes.
• Discretionary: appellate review is for abuse of discretion.

For comparative-law researchers, remittitur is a distinctly common-law institution; civil-law jurisdictions, which rarely use juries for damages, address excessive awards through direct appellate revision instead.