"In stark contrast with the past," notes David Owsiany, "Ohio's highest court recently upheld caps on non-economic and punitive damages in Arbino v. Johnson & Johnson and a ten-year product liability statute of repose in Groch v. General Motors Corp." In the new issue of the Federalist Society's State Court Docket Watch (PDF, article begins on p. 2) Owsiany analyzes the two cases and contrasts them with the Ohio court's earlier, deplorable insistence on substituting its own policy views for those of the state's legislature. At the Buckeye Institute's blog, Owsiany notes that the fate of such decisions may hang in the electoral balance with two of the reform-tolerant justices, Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Maureen O'Connor, up for reelection in 2008. He also mentions the recent Manhattan Institute publication, Trial Lawyers Inc. -- Ohio (more on which).