In the 1993 case Honda Motor Co., Ltd. v. Karl L. Oberg, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that Oregon's system of judicial review in civil cases violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it did not provide a meaningful opportunity for appellate review of trial court decisions on questions of law or legal inference. The plaintiff, Karl Oberg, had won a product liability lawsuit against Honda Motor Company after he was injured while riding one of their all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). However, under Oregon law at that time, there was no provision allowing for an appeal to challenge whether evidence presented at trial sufficiently supported jury verdicts in civil cases like this one. The Supreme Court held that such lack of appellate scrutiny could result in arbitrary deprivation of property and thus constituted a violation of due process rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Honda Motor Co., Ltd. v. Karl L. Oberg, Justice Scalia disagreed with the majority's decision to apply a federal due process standard to punitive damages in state civil cases. He argued that there was no historical basis or precedent for such an application of federal law and that it represented an overreach by the Supreme Court into matters traditionally left to individual states' discretion. Furthermore, he contended that this ruling would create unnecessary confusion and inconsistency in future litigation because it did not provide clear guidelines on how courts should determine whether punitive damages are excessive under this new standard.