After steadily declining for years, the size of the Top Ten Jury Verdicts rose dramatically in 2008.
The top verdict in 2008 was $388 million, a significant increase over 2007’s top award of $109 million. The average award increased dramatically as well, driven by three verdicts of well over $100 million – including one of nearly $400 million. The average award for 2007 was just shy of $51 million, while the average award for 2008 more than doubled, to $112 million.
The year’s top verdict was awarded to a 70-year-old inventor who claims he was hounded by California tax authorities for the past 15 years. And five of the Top Ten Verdicts stemmed from personal injury cases, including $85 million for a medical school student who was badly injured after falling into a manhole and $84 million for an elderly man struck by a U-Haul with a faulty parking brake. Interestingly, there were no medical malpractice cases in the Top Ten.
Source: Lawyers USA
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 and is filed under Lists and Rankings, Source File, Year End Wrap-Ups.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.