Missouri Law Review Volume 74 Issue 1 Winter 2009 Article 4 Winter 2009 Due Process Forgotten: The Problem of Statutory Damages and Class Actions Sheila B. Scheuerman Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Sheila B. Scheuerman, Due Process Forgotten: The Problem of Statutory Damages and Class Actions, 74 MO. L. REV. (2009) Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol74/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Missouri Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Scheuerman: Scheuerman: Due Process Forgotten Due Process Forgotten: The Problem of Statutory Damages and Class Actions Sheila B. Scheuerman* I. INTRODUCTION "A billion here and a billion there, andpretty soon you 're talking about real money. In the past several years, the due process limits on punitive damages have garnered a great deal of attention from courts, 2 scholars 3 and practition- ers.4 While punitive damages have been under the analytical microscope, statutory damages - civil penalty amounts prescribed by legislatures for * Associate Professor of Law, Charleston School of Law. I would like to thank Anthony Franze, Christopher J. Robinette, and Anthony J. Sebok for their help- ful comments on earlier drafts of this Article. I also would like to thank Tony Sebok, Myriam Gilles, and the students in their Mass Litigation & Settlement seminar for workshopping this Article.