Bowden v. Caldor, Inc.

ELDRIDGE, Judge.

This case presents several important issues concerning court review of jurors’ punitive damages awards in tort actions.

I

In March 1988, the petitioner Samuel David Bowden, an African-American then sixteen years of age, was hired by the respondent Caldor, a regional retail department store chain, to work as a customer service representative in one of its Baltimore area stores. Shortly after reporting to work on June 15, 1988, Bowden was detained and interrogated for over four hours in a small, windowless office in the store by two employees of Caldor’s security department, who…