and 24-2557 TZVIA WEXLER v. CHARMAINE HAWKINS; JAMES KOENIG Tzvia Wexler

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
Nos. 24-2320, 24-2368, and 24-2557
TZVIA WEXLER
v.
CHARMAINE HAWKINS; JAMES KOENIG
Tzvia Wexler,
Appellant in No. 24-2368
Charmaine Hawkins;
James Koenig,
Appellants in Nos.
24-2320, 24-2557
_____________________________
Appeal from the U.S. District Court, E.D. Pa.
Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, No. 2:19-cv-05760
Before: BIBAS, PORTER, and BOVE, Circuit Judges
Argued Jan. 28, 2026; Decided Apr. 22, 2026
_____________________________
OPINION OF THE COURT
BOVE, Circuit Judge. An officer from the Philadelphia
Police Department, Defendant Charmaine Hawkins, used a
choke hold on Plaintiff Tzvia Wexler in 2019. Both women
suffered minor injuries during the exchange. When Plaintiff
asked for medical treatment and the officer’s identifying
information, Defendant Hawkins retaliated by pursuing

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escalated charges. Based on Defendant Hawkins’ account of
the incident, Detective James Koenig—the second Defendant
here—recommended that Plaintiff be charged with five crimes,
including an aggravated-assault felony. Plaintiff was detained
overnight. She was released early the next morning. The
charges were later dismissed.
Plaintiff sued under § 1983 and Pennsylvania law. She
won a trial against Defendants Hawkins and Koenig. The jury
awarded her $6,000 in compensatory damages, with $4,000
apportioned to Defendant Hawkins, and $1 million in punitive
damages, which the jury split evenly between the two
Defendants. In response to Defendants’ post-trial motions, the
District Court reduced the punitive damages by half.
On appeal, Defendant Koenig argues that he was
entitled to judgment as a matter of law because the charges he
recommended against Plaintiff were supported by probable
cause. We agree. Defendant Hawkins does not challenge the
jury’s findings regarding liability or compensatory damages.
But she and Plaintiff cross-appeal the remaining $250,000 of
punitive damages. Removed from the emotionally charged
trial environment, and applying the due-process “guideposts”
established by the Supreme Court, we find the punitive-
damages award to be constitutionally excessive. Plaintiff made
a modest showing on the reprehensibility guidepost, but the
extreme disparity between the punitive and compensatory
damages lacks legal and factual support. Using our best
judgment, which is all we can do when required to apply this
amorphous constitutional test, the punitive damages are
reduced to $12,000.
We will therefore reverse the judgment against
Defendant Koenig, vacate the judgment against Defendant

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Hawkins, and remand for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
I.
The trial lasted five days and included testimony from
the parties, Plaintiff’s husband, and another officer who was
present at the scene with Defendant Hawkins. In summarizing
the trial evidence below, we draw all inferences in favor of
Plaintiff.
A.
On June 9, 2019, Plaintiff planned to ride her bike to a
meeting near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Defendant
Hawkins was assigned to crowd control duties on a parade
route between Plaintiff and her meeting. Plaintiff started to
walk her bike as she approached the crowd from the parade.
An officer directed her to cross the route down the street.
Plaintiff then encountered Defendant Hawkins.
Defendant Hawkins told Plaintiff that she could not
continue in the same direction on the street. Plaintiff testified
at trial that Defendant Hawkins followed up on verbal
instructions by pulling Plaintiff’s bike and shoving Plaintiff
into the crowd. Plaintiff told the jury that, after Defendant
Hawkins “shoved” her a second time, Defendant Hawkins
“grabbed” Plaintiff’s neck and “choked” her with both hands.
JA262-63. Another officer testified at the trial that Defendant
Hawkins had at least one hand near Plaintiff’s neck in a
“grasping motion,” and that Plaintiff and Defendant Hawkins
“were both grabbing each other high in their neck area.”
JA852, 857.

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Following the scuffle, Plaintiff asked for Defendant
Hawkins’ name and badge number and to be taken to the
hospital. Body camera footage captured Defendant Hawkins
indicating that the police had planned to provide Plaintiff with
a form of ticket known as a Code Violation Notice for
disorderly conduct, but they decided to increase the charges
based on Plaintiff’s questions and scratches sustained by
Defendant Hawkins. Officers told Plaintiff that she was “not
going to the hospital.” JA213. The officer who prepared the
Code Violation Notice gave it to Defendant Hawkins, who
testified that she did not recall receiving it.
Defendant Hawkins and other officers arrested Plaintiff,
handcuffed her, and lodged her at a detention facility at
approximately 5:00 p.m. on June 9, 2019. While Plaintiff was
detained, Defendant Koenig interviewed Defendant Hawkins
regarding the incident. Defendant Hawkins said that Plaintiff
had shoved her, grabbed her by the shirt, and scratched her
neck and face. Defendant Hawkins did not tell Defendant
Koenig that she had put her hands on Plaintiff’s neck.
Following the interview, Defendant Koenig briefed his
immediate supervisor and recommended charges against
Plaintiff. The supervisor did not ask Defendant Koenig for
additional information or direct follow-up investigation. She
approved Defendant Koenig’s recommendation that Plaintiff
be charged with aggravated assault and four other crimes.
Plaintiff was released from custody early on the
morning of June 10, 2019. On July 22, 2019, Plaintiff attended
a preliminary hearing where Defendant Hawkins testified
about her side of the story from June 9. At the hearing,
Defendant Hawkins maintained that she had only “grabbed”
Plaintiff’s neck with one hand. JA637-38. Based on that

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testimony, a judge authorized the District Attorney to proceed
on the aggravated assault and simple assault charges. In
response to a motion by Plaintiff challenging those charges, the
District Attorney withdrew them.
B.
On December 6, 2019, Plaintiff filed federal and state
claims against the City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia’s Police
Department, Defendant Hawkins, Defendant Koenig, and
another officer. Defendants Hawkins and Koenig were the
only defendants remaining in the case when the trial started on
January 16, 2024. At that point, the live claims were:
• Excessive force against Defendant Hawkins, in
violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
• Assault and battery against Defendant Hawkins, in
violation of Pennsylvania law;
• First Amendment retaliation against Defendant
Hawkins, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
• False imprisonment against Defendants Hawkins and
Koenig, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and
Pennsylvania law;
• False arrest against Defendants Hawkins and Koenig, in
violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Pennsylvania law;
and

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• Malicious prosecution against Defendants Hawkins and
Koenig, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and
Pennsylvania law.
On January 23, 2024, the jurors found for Plaintiff on
each claim. They apportioned $4,000 in compensatory
damages to Defendant Hawkins and $2,000 in compensatory
damages to Defendant Koenig. The jury also found that both
Defendants acted wantonly or maliciously and awarded $1
million in punitive damages, with $500,000 apportioned to
each Defendant.
On June 21, 2024, the District Court denied
substantially all of Defendants’ post-trial motions. The sole
exception was that the District Court reduced the punitive-
damages awards to $250,000 against each Defendant. On July
25, 2024, the District Court awarded Plaintiff $292,810.23 in
attorneys’ fees. The parties timely appealed.
II.
The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1331, 1343, and 1367. We have jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1291.
In Part III, we conduct de novo review of the District
Court’s denial of Defendant Koenig’s motion for judgment as
a matter of law. See Rodriquez v. Se. Pa. Transp. Auth., 119
F.4th 296, 298 (3d Cir. 2024).1 In Part IV, we conduct de novo
review of the District Court’s application of constitutional
1 Unless otherwise indicated, case quotations omit all internal
citations, quotation marks, footnotes, alterations, and
subsequent history.

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criteria governing punitive damages. See Washington v.
Gilmore, 124 F.4th 178, 184 (3d Cir. 2024).
III.
We take a “fresh look” at the District Court’s denial of
Defendant Koenig’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on
Plaintiff’s false imprisonment, false arrest, and malicious
prosecution claims. Rodriquez, 119 F.4th at 298; see also Fed.
R. Civ. P. 50. Our examination of the record reveals that the
relevant decisions by Defendant Koenig were supported by
probable cause. Thus, his motion should have prevailed.
A.
One element common to Plaintiff’s claims for false
arrest and false imprisonment was that Defendant Koenig
lacked probable cause to believe that Plaintiff committed a
crime when he recommended that charges be filed against her.
See Lozano v. New Jersey, 9 F.4th 239, 245-46 (3d Cir. 2021);
Manley v. Fitzgerald, 997 A.2d 1235, 1241 (Pa. Commw. Ct.
2010). Plaintiff was required to establish that there was no
probable cause for any crime at all, which we call the “any-
crime rule.” Rivera-Guadalupe v. City of Harrisburg, 124
F.4th 295, 303 (3d Cir. 2024). In light of the information
available to Defendant Koenig at the time he recommended the
charges, no reasonable juror could conclude that Plaintiff met
her burden on that element.
The top charge that Defendant Koenig recommended
was aggravated assault. See 18 Pa. Stat. and Cons. Stat. Ann.
§ 2702(a). Pennsylvania law establishes multiple forms of that
offense. One of them required proof that Plaintiff “attempt[ed]
to cause or intentionally or knowingly cause[d] bodily injury”

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to Defendant Hawkins. Id. § 2702(a)(3). “Bodily injury” is an
“[i]mpairment of physical condition or substantial pain.” Id.
§ 2301. The definition requires more than “fast dancing,” but
the probable cause threshold is crossed where an officer is
struck in the face and experiences “slight swelling and pain.”
Commonwealth v. Marti, 779 A.2d 1177, 1181 (Pa. Super. Ct.
2001). Similar to federal law, attempt in Pennsylvania requires
specific intent and a substantial step. See Commonwealth v.
Martuscelli, 54 A.3d 940, 947-48 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2012).
With the aggravated-assault charge in mind, we
evaluate probable cause based on what was “known to”
Defendant Koenig. Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 152
(2004). The relevant frame of reference is “the moment”
Defendant Koenig recommended the charges. Beck v. Ohio,
379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964). “[T]he standard does not require that
officers correctly resolve conflicting evidence or that their
determinations of credibility, were, in retrospect, accurate.”
Wright v. City of Philadelphia, 409 F.3d 595, 603 (3d Cir.
2005).
The following evidence was presented to the jury. On
the afternoon of June 9, 2019, Defendant Hawkins told
Defendant Koenig that Plaintiff had been “irate,” used a bike
to “hit” her, scratched her face and arm, and “grabbed” her near
the neck. JA454-55. Defendant Hawkins described
“throbbing” pain in her neck and arm following the affray.
JA454-55. She also gave Defendant Koenig two reports with
additional details. The first report, titled “Injured Officer,”
stated that Plaintiff “shoved her bike into” Defendant Hawkins
and “grabbed the Officer by the Shirt,” which caused
“scratches” on Defendant Hawkins’ neck and face. JA453-55.
The second report, titled “Assault on Police,” stated that
Plaintiff “shoved” her bike at Defendant Hawkins and

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“grab[bed]” for Defendant Hawkins’ face. JA454-55. The
second report also stated that the incident caused “scratches”
to Defendant Hawkins’ face and arm. JA454-55.
Following the interview, Defendant Koenig had
probable cause to believe Plaintiff attempted to cause bodily
injury to Defendant Hawkins and therefore committed
aggravated assault under Pennsylvania law. While the trial
revealed that there was more to the story, a probable-cause
finding was the only conclusion available to Defendant Koenig
that afternoon based on evidence suggesting that an angry
civilian had refused to follow lawful commands, struck an
officer with a bike multiple times, and attacked the officer’s
neck, face, and arms. Intent and a substantial step toward that
objective were sufficiently demonstrated by the injuries that
Defendant Hawkins sustained, which Defendant Koenig
documented at the time of the interview and included markings
near Defendant Hawkins’ neck and a scratch within inches of
her eye. See Commonwealth v. Patrick, 933 A.2d 1043, 1047
(Pa. Super. Ct. 2007) (“[T]here can be no dispute about the
physiological significance of the victim’s head.”). Based on
that evidence, no reasonable juror could find that Plaintiff met
her burden of establishing a lack of probable cause in support
of the false arrest and false imprisonment claims against
Defendant Koenig.
Plaintiff’s arguments to the contrary attack what she
regards as a “slipshod” investigation. Answering Br. 25. In
particular, Plaintiff points to trial evidence of Defendant
Koenig’s apparent failure to follow Department procedures
relating to investigations of officer assaults. The District Court
reasoned similarly when denying Defendant Koenig’s motion
for judgment as a matter of law. Generally, however, post-hoc
claims about investigative deficiencies do not undermine

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probable cause. See Trabal v. Wells Fargo Armored Serv.
Corp., 269 F.3d 243, 251 (3d Cir. 2001); Merkle v. Upper
Dublin Sch. Dist., 211 F.3d 782, 790 & n.8 (3d Cir. 2000);
Groman v. Twp. of Manalapan, 47 F.3d 628, 635 n.10 (3d Cir.
1995); Orsatti v. N.J. State Police, 71 F.3d 480, 484 (3d Cir.
1995). On these facts, that proposition controls. The District
Court’s view that Defendant Koenig’s investigation was not
“thorough” enough was not relevant to the probable-cause
element of Plaintiff’s claims. JA27.
Because we will not autopsy the quality of the
Department’s investigation in this posture, we reject Plaintiff’s
push for a “totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry” that
incorporates supposedly “exculpatory evidence.” Answering
Br. 31. The case Plaintiff cites in support of this argument,
Harvard v. Cesnalis, does not call for that sort of free-ranging
analysis. See 973 F.3d 190, 203 (3d Cir. 2020). Harvard
requires an officer to consider “plainly exculpatory evidence”
that is known to him at the time he assesses probable cause. Id.
at 200. The holding is limited to instances of “obvious
exculpatory evidence that casts a dark cloud on the reliability
of other evidence suggesting guilt.” Madero v. McGuinness,
97 F.4th 516, 523 n.9 (7th Cir. 2024). No such evidence was
presented to Defendant Koenig on the afternoon of June 9,
2019.
Plaintiff argues that Defendant Koenig should have
found Defendant Hawkins’ account “questionable” and then
interviewed Plaintiff, among other things. Answering Br. 32-
33. Nothing in Harvard required those steps. Even if
Defendant Koenig had elected to interview Plaintiff prior to
making his decision, he would not have been required to accept
her version of events. See Wright, 409 F.3d at 603; Paff v.
Kaltenbach, 204 F.3d 425, 437 (3d Cir. 2000); see also District

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of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 61 (2018) (“[P]robable
cause does not require officers to rule out a suspect’s innocent
explanation for suspicious facts.”). Therefore, Defendant
Koenig is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff’s
claims for false arrest and false imprisonment.
B.
Plaintiff’s federal malicious prosecution claim required
proof that at least one of the charges recommended by
Defendant Koenig was not supported by probable cause. The
any-crime rule does not apply to that claim. See Rivera-
Guadalupe, 124 F.4th at 303-04 (citing Chiaverini v. City of
Napoleon, 602 U.S. 556, 564 (2024)). Pennsylvania courts do
not appear to have addressed the implications of Chiaverini for
purposes of the analogous state-law tort. See, e.g., York v.
Kanan, 298 A.3d 533, 546-47 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2023). We
need not express a view on that question because, regardless of
whether the any-crime rule applies, Plaintiff failed to meet her
burden on the malicious prosecution theory. She did not show
that any of the charges were unsupported by probable cause.
In addition to aggravated assault, Defendant Koenig
recommended four additional charges against Plaintiff: simple
assault, recklessly endangering another person, harassment,
and possessing an instrument of crime. On appeal, Plaintiff
makes no distinct evidentiary arguments specific to these
offenses. The first three crimes are co-located in the “Assault”
chapter of Pennsylvania law with the aggravated-assault
charge we analyzed above. See 18 Pa. Stat. and Cons. Stat.
Ann. §§ 2701(a) (simple assault), 2705 (reckless
endangerment), 2709 (harassment). In light of the elements of
these offenses, it necessarily follows from our conclusions
regarding the aggravated-assault charge that Defendant

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Koenig’s recommendation of three additional charges from the
same chapter of Pennsylvania’s statutes were supported by
probable cause.
The fourth charge recommended by Defendant Koenig,
possessing an instrument of crime, prohibits possession of
“[a]nything used for criminal purposes,” “under circumstances
not manifestly appropriate for lawful uses it may have,” while
harboring intent to use the object criminally. 18 Pa. Stat. and
Cons. Stat. Ann. § 907(a), (d)(2); see also Commonwealth v.
Moore, 103 A.3d 1240, 1243 n.5 (Pa. 2014). Despite the fact
that a bike is not a traditional criminal implement, Defendant
Hawkins’ account gave rise to probable cause for the charge.
See Commonwealth v. Brunson, 938 A.2d 1057, 1062 (Pa.
Super. Ct. 2007) (affirming § 907 conviction based on thrown
soda bottle “made of harmless plastic”). According to
Defendant Hawkins, Plaintiff had struck her with the bike.
That could qualify as assault under Pennsylvania law, which
was not a manifestly appropriate use of Plaintiff’s two-wheeler.
See 18 Pa. Stat. and Cons. Stat. Ann. § 2701(a). And because
there was probable cause to believe that Plaintiff had acted with
the intent necessary for the aggravated-assault charge, the
intent element of this offense was also supported by probable
cause.
We conclude that Plaintiff failed to establish at trial that
Defendant Koenig lacked probable cause to support the
charges he recommended against Plaintiff. Accordingly, as
with the false arrest and false imprisonment theories,
Defendant Koenig is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on
Plaintiff’s malicious prosecution claims.

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IV.
Because Plaintiff did not establish Defendant Koenig’s
liability, we only need to address the award of $250,000 in
punitive damages apportioned to Defendant Hawkins. Plaintiff
asks us to reinstate the jury’s original award of $500,000.
Defendant Hawkins asks us to reduce the $250,000 award even
further. She has the better argument.
“The Supreme Court has held that the Due Process
Clause limits punitive damages.” Washington, 124 F.4th at
186. The guiding principle is that defendants are entitled to
fair notice of the severity of potential penalties for their
misconduct. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell,
538 U.S. 408, 417 (2003). But “the relevant constitutional line
is inherently imprecise.” Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman
Tool Grp., Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 434 (2001). To assist, the
Supreme Court has prescribed three due-process guideposts:
the reprehensibility of the conduct, the disparity between the
actual or potential harm and the punitive damages award, and
comparison to any existing statutory penalties for comparable
conduct. See id. at 435.
Notwithstanding the fuzziness of the standard, our de
novo review of the constitutional question is “[e]xacting.”
State Farm, 538 U.S. at 418. This “ensures that an award of
punitive damages is based upon an application of law, rather
than a decisionmaker’s caprice.” Id. Constitutional limitations
on punitive-damages awards are “an especially appropriate
context in which the reflective role of a court of appeals
follows the often dramatic arena of a trial court.” Mathie v.
Fries, 121 F.3d 808, 817 (2d Cir. 1997); see also Cooper
Indus., 532 U.S. at 440 (discussing “[d]ifferences in the
institutional competence of trial judges and appellate judges”).

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The trial in this case was dramatic indeed. Plaintiff’s
counsel sought to persuade the jury with heated and at times
questionable rhetoric. During his summation, he discussed
slavery, the women’s suffrage movement, and the death of
George Floyd. Counsel improperly added himself to the jury
when he told the jurors that “we”—including himself—are
“the governed.” JA1079. He used “we” again when asking the
jurors to “send a message”: “We’re the governed and we will
not stand for this from our government.” JA1139; see also
Edwards v. City of Philadelphia, 860 F.2d 568, 574 (3d Cir.
1988) (explaining that it is improper to “encourage[] the jury
to depart from neutrality and to decide the case on the basis of
personal interest and bias rather than on the evidence”). With
a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the non-sequitur
comment that, “[i]ncreasingly, the citizens in our Nation have
come to realize that they need not bend to the will of any police
officer for any improper reason,” the District Court’s post-trial
analysis of the punitive damages was not exactly dispassionate
either. JA61; see also State Farm, 538 U.S. at 420 (criticizing
use of individual case “as a platform to expose, and punish, the
perceived deficiencies of State Farm’s operations throughout
the country”).
Removed from the drama, we conclude that $250,000
in punitive damages is constitutionally excessive. The
punitives awarded to Plaintiff are “neither reasonable nor
proportionate to the wrong committed.” State Farm, 538 U.S.
at 429. Driving this conclusion is the fact that the
reprehensibility of Defendant Hawkins’ conduct is clear
enough but not overwhelming, and the disparity between the
punitive and compensatory damages is far too great. Our best
judgment based on the trial record is that the constitutional
ceiling for punitive damages apportioned to Defendant

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Hawkins is $12,000, which is three times the compensatory
damages relating to Defendant Hawkins’ conduct.
A.
Reprehensibility—i.e., “[t]he flagrancy of the
misconduct”—is “[p]erhaps the most important indicium of the
reasonableness of a punitive damages award.” BMW of N. Am.,
Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 575 & n.23 (1996). Plaintiff was
“made whole” through compensatory damages, and the
question is whether Defendant Hawkins’ conduct was “so
reprehensible as to warrant the imposition of further sanctions
to achieve punishment or deterrence.” State Farm, 538 U.S. at
419. Five subfactors are relevant to reprehensibility: the nature
of the harm, health or safety risks, financial vulnerability of the
victim, whether there was repeated misconduct by the
defendant, and the defendant’s underlying intent. See id. The
first and fifth subfactors provide what amounts to modest
support for the imposition of punitive damages.
First, Defendant Hawkins caused physical harm to
Plaintiff. Plaintiff concedes that her injuries were “minor.”
Answering Br. 50. There was also objective evidence of
injuries to Defendant Hawkins and corroborating trial
testimony from another officer that both women were
“grabbing each other high in their neck area.” JA852. Thus,
this subfactor favors Plaintiff, but only to a limited extent.
Second, Defendant Hawkins’ conduct did not pose a
risk to the health or safety of the general public, but the District
Court found that Defendant Hawkins displayed “blatant
indifference” to Plaintiff’s “health and safety.” JA56. On
these facts, where there is near-complete overlap between
actual physical harm to Plaintiff for purposes of the first

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subfactor and any risk to Plaintiff’s health or safety, we need
not decide whether risk to Plaintiff alone is sufficient for
purposes of the second subfactor. Even if Plaintiff-specific
risk is enough, that would not change our view about the
overall balancing.
Third, Plaintiff did not establish financial vulnerability.
This subfactor is neutral.
Fourth, the single “extended transaction” at issue in this
case does not support a finding of repetitive misconduct.
Willow Inn, Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Mut. Ins. Co., 399 F.3d 224, 232
(3d Cir. 2005). There was no evidence of a “pattern of
behavior” by Defendant Hawkins, and the incident was limited
to her “dealings with the plaintiff.” CGB Occupational
Therapy, Inc. v. RHA Health Servs., Inc., 499 F.3d 184, 191 &
n.3 (3d Cir. 2007). Defendant Hawkins’ descriptions of the
incident during an interview, testimony, and in reports do not
count against her as repetition for purposes of this subfactor.
Nearly every defendant similarly situated to Defendant
Hawkins at this point in a case will be on the wrong side of a
credibility assessment after telling her side of the story, and
that is not reflective of the type of recidivism discussed in
Gore. See 517 U.S. at 577. To count prior similar statements
against these types of defendants as repetition would suggest
that punitive damages should be available almost every time a
plaintiff prevails. That is not the law. Thus, the fourth
reprehensibility subfactor is also neutral.
Fifth, the jury’s finding of maliciousness is the strongest
indicator of reprehensibility. Consistent with that finding, the
District Court observed that Defendant Hawkins participated
in a “flagrant abuse of authority,” which involved what
Plaintiff described as choking as well as retaliation by

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Defendant Hawkins in response to Plaintiff’s request for
medical treatment and identifying information. JA55. The
court also found that Defendant Hawkins’ trial testimony was
“evasive and combative.” JA55.
That said, Defendant Hawkins’ post-incident
descriptions of the event, which the District Court described as
“distorted” and containing “falsehoods,” do not weigh heavily
on Plaintiff’s side for purposes of this subfactor. JA55-56.
Defendant Hawkins acknowledged in one of her reports that
she applied a “control hold” to Plaintiff, she used the same term
during her interview with Defendant Koenig, and she testified
at trial that she described her control hold during that interview.
JA1303, JA1315. These are not exonerating details for
Defendant Hawkins, but they undercut the suggestion that she
sought to conceal the physicality of the incident immediately
after it happened. Therefore, the fifth reprehensibility
subfactor provides the most support for a finding of
reprehensibility, and the first subfactor provides limited
additional support. Collectively, the balance of these
subfactors is consistent with an award of punitive damages, but
not nearly the $250,000 approved by the District Court.
B.
The disparity guidepost requires us to consider the
difference between punitive and compensatory damages. The
62.5:1 ratio approved by the District Court is much too
extreme.
Generally speaking, after hundreds of years of using
“double, treble, or quadruple damages to deter and punish” in
private litigation, a 4:1 ratio “might be close to the line of
constitutional impropriety.” State Farm, 538 U.S. at 425. In

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considering just how close to that line the punitive-damages
award was in this case, we are mindful that much of the
Supreme Court’s discussion of constitutional limitations on
punitive damages has arisen in cases involving more traditional
torts instead of federal civil rights. See, e.g., id. at 418 (finding
it “neither close nor difficult” to reject 145:1 ratio); Gore, 517
U.S. at 583; Pac. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 23
(1991). Yet, because this analysis is driven by fair-notice
concerns, the long historical tradition of more limited statutory
multiples warrants careful consideration by courts tasked with
applying the constitutional standard to punitive-damages
awards in cases of all sorts.
More recently, our Court has applied the due-process
guideposts to a punitive-damages award based on § 1983
claims that involved constitutional harms. See Washington,
124 F.4th at 187. In fairness to the District Court, Washington
was decided after the court’s post-trial opinion. The fact
remains that, under Washington, a “single-digit ratio” is a
constitutional “rule of thumb” even if “not a cap.” Id. The
Washington panel affirmed a 10:1 ratio because there was a
“special justification”: two “sadistic” sexual assaults on a
prisoner that were separated by two years—one of which left
the plaintiff “soaked with blood”—that were both
“reprehensible in every sense of the word.” Id. at 184, 187.
Serious as the jury may have found Defendant Hawkins’
conduct to have been during the single incident in this case, the
record contains no special justification for such a dramatic
departure from the single-digit rule of thumb in this Circuit or
the Supreme Court’s 4:1 constitutional marker.
The District Court also erred by finding the disparity
guidepost to be of “limited utility” because the court believed
the compensatory damages were nominal or “essentially

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nominal.” JA59. Nominal damages are “the damages awarded
by default until the plaintiff establishes entitlement to some
other form of damages, such as compensatory or statutory
damages,” even in cases involving “a violation of an important
right.” Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 592 U.S. 279, 288, 290
(2021). The District Court instructed the jury that an award of
a single dollar would constitute nominal damages, and that
nominal damages would serve as a “recognition” that
Plaintiff’s federal rights had been violated. JA1180. The
jurors found that Plaintiff was entitled to more than
recognition. They chose to award $4,000 in compensatory
damages based on their findings relating to Defendant
Hawkins. This aspect of the verdict was not nominal.
An award of four-thousand times the defined value of
nominal damages was not “essentially nominal” either. The
term appears to have originated in Romanski v. Detroit
Entertainment, L.L.C., 428 F.3d 629, 645 (6th Cir. 2005). The
compensatory damages in that case were $279.05. Id. at 635.
The Sixth Circuit minimized the relevance of the huge ratio
between punitive and compensatory damages because it was
concerned that the compensatory damages were “unusually
low,” and that the $9.05 “economic injury was so minimal as
to be essentially nominal.” Id. at 645. We do not have the
same concern about the total of $4,000 in compensatory
damages that the jury apportioned to Defendant Hawkins. The
“essentially nominal” $9.05 from Romanski is not analogous.
The Sixth Circuit also reduced the $875,000 punitive-damages
award against the defendant casino to $600,000 by calculating
“sixty per cent of the casino’s daily intake at the time of the
verdict.” Id. at 649. We have never endorsed such a metric,
which appears to have been addressed to the casino’s economic
leverage over the plaintiff, and we decline to do so here where

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Defendants are public servants and at least some of the costs
are likely to be absorbed by taxpayers.
The District Court relied on language from Gore
indicating that, in theory, “low” compensatory damages can
justify a “higher ratio” where “a particularly egregious act has
resulted in only a small amount of economic damages,” “the
injury is hard to detect,” or “the monetary value of
noneconomic harm might have been difficult to determine.”
517 U.S. at 582. This case involved serious misconduct, but it
cannot be considered “particularly egregious” when compared
to Washington. Id. Nor were Plaintiff’s damages hard to detect
or calculate. Plaintiff obtained a $4,000 compensatory award
for the types of injuries we routinely entrust civil juries to
measure, such as physical harm, pain, discomfort, fear,
humiliation, and mental anguish, and including that which
Plaintiff was “reasonably certain to experience in the future.”
JA1207. Thus, we do not consider the compensatory-damages
verdict, rendered by a jury that received legal instructions not
challenged on appeal, to have been “low” relative to Plaintiff’s
trial presentation. All told, Defendant Hawkins’ conduct was
not reprehensible or malicious enough to exceed the 4:1
constitutional “line” suggested in State Farm and other cases,
much less the “rule of thumb” from Washington.
C.
The third due-process guidepost calls for comparison of
the punitives award to “civil or criminal penalties that could be
imposed for comparable misconduct.” Gore, 517 U.S. at 583.
The point here, as we understand it, is to use any analogous
statutory penalties or caps as a rough measure of existing
“legislative judgments concerning appropriate sanctions for
the conduct at issue.” Id. Where there is comparable statutory

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guidance on the books for the public to see, those provisions
mitigate fair-notice concerns. See Willow Inn, 399 F.3d at 237.
There are no statutory penalties associated with
Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims. While some Circuits look instead to
punitive-damages verdicts when addressing this guidepost, we
have not endorsed that approach. See Washington, 124 F.4th at
188. After all, “[b]ecause no two cases are truly identical,
meaningful comparisons of such awards are difficult to make.”
TXO Prod. Corp. v. All. Res. Corp., 509 U.S. 443, 457 (1993)
(plurality opinion). This challenge is evident from the
comparisons drawn by the District Court. Two of the District
Court’s cases involved nominal rather than compensatory
damages. Another two involved non-constitutional remittitur,
which is distinct from a constitutional reduction. See Johansen
v. Combustion Eng’g, Inc., 170 F.3d 1320, 1331 (11th Cir.
1999) (explaining that “a constitutionally reduced verdict” is
“not a remittitur at all” and does not offend the Seventh
Amendment because the jury’s fact-findings are left
untouched); see also Cortez v. Trans Union, LLC, 617 F.3d
688, 716-17 (3d Cir. 2010). Finally, with the exception of
Romanski, the other cases cited by the District Court involved
more severe physical harm and, in some instances, lower ratios
that are consistent with our holding.
Thus, there is considerable force to Plaintiff’s
arguments on appeal that “verdicts in other cases are not civil
penalties” under the third guidepost, and that “lists” of verdicts
“are of limited helpfulness.” Answering Br. 62-63. But we
need not go that far. It suffices to say here, as in Washington,
that the third guidepost is inconsequential in light of the import
of the first two. We are obligated to reduce the award of
punitive damages, and $12,000 is the constitutional ceiling on
these facts.

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V.
We will reverse the judgment against Defendant Koenig
because he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on each
of Plaintiff’s claims. We will vacate the judgment against
Defendant Hawkins and instruct the District Court to enter a
reduced award of punitive damages in the amount of $12,000.
In light of these holdings, we will also vacate the District
Court’s award of attorneys’ fees and remand the matter so that
the court can reconsider that issue in light of this opinion.
Counsel for Appellants
Craig R. Gottlieb [Argued]
City of Philadelphia Law Department
Counsel for Appellee
Thomas B. Malone [Argued]
The Malone Firm

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