If you're a big company and commit an horrendous multi million dollar fraud of widows and orphans, you are protected from the persons you defrauded because the Court says the punishment has to be proportional to the actual damages.
No. You can be sued for the multi million dollars you got through fraud and made to pay every cent of that back to the widows and orphans. This decision just says that the jury can't then decide they don't like you and fine you 145 times the actual damages.
Ok, but what are the practical applications of this? First of all, the widows and the orphans don't get back every cent. Going to court costs money. Besides attorney's fees, which can't be considered in rendering a damage award, juries, as a rule, tend to undercompensate.
But besides this, what about the practical implications? Even though it's nothing but dicta, let's say that the 10x damage rule applies. Punitive damages, which are intended to be a disincentive to abhorant conduct, have been reduced to nothing but a chimera. What this decision tells me as a Fortune 500 Company, is that we can continue to defraud and bilk and scam and injure consumers, just as long as less than 1 out of 10 who are injured win a judgment against us. Frankly, I think those are pretty good odds. Where is the disincentive?
OK, now lets say your son is dating the ex-wife of a certain Hall of Fame running back. In a fit of jealousy, the football player kills you son and his girlfriend. A jury of retarded people lets the football player off the hook. CAn you still sue him for every cent he's got?