Has The Age Of Billion-Dollar Verdicts Passed?

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Barger & Wolen LLP

After studying the largest jury verdicts awarded in 2008, a Bloomberg.com article declared that “[t]he billion-dollar verdict has disappeared from U.S. courtrooms.”  While the fourteen years between 1991 and 2005 yielded about two billion-dollar verdicts a year, between 2006 and 2008, only one such award was issued, a 2007 verdict for $1.5 billion.

The article offered a variety of possible explanations for this trend, including State and Federal limits on damages and claims, the campaign financing of some conservative judges by business interests and United States Supreme Court decisions limiting the amount of money that can be awarded in certain instances.  Additionally, there is anecdotal evidence that plaintiffs’ counsel, wary of having excess awards eventually overturned, are not asking that juries award their clients huge punitive damages awards.  One corporate-defense attorney speculated that juries are now so cynical towards plaintiffs that even “insurance companies want juries.” 

Full Article

Tags: , ,
Trackbacks (0) Links to blogs that reference this article Trackback URL: http://www.lifehealthdisabilityinsurancelaw.com/admin/trackback/114419
Comments (0) Read through and enter the discussion with the form at the end
Post A Comment / Question Use this form to add a comment to this entry.







Remember personal info?
Send To A Friend Use this form to send this entry to a friend via email.