By Margaret Cronin Fisk
The billion-dollar jury verdict has disappeared from U.S. courtrooms.
For the second time in the past three years, juries in 2008 issued no awards above that amount, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. In 2007, there was one such verdict, for $1.5 billion. In the previous 14 years there was at least one billion-dollar verdict a year and a total of 26. Six cases produced awards of more than $5 billion each.
One reason for the drop: Because of changes in legal rulings, punitive-damage verdicts can be thrown out if they far exceed actual damages. Some lawyers don’t seek amounts that clearly violate the rules. Phoenix attorney Grant Woods said when he asked for punitive damages in a contract trial in September, he urged jurors to award “not too little, not too much.”
“There’s no need to ask for huge punitives that far outstrip the compensatory damages,” Woods said. “I asked the jury, ‘Don’t come back with some crazy number, like a billion dollars.’”
The lower threat of high punitive damages has helped corporate defendants by taking away an incentive to settle out of court, said attorney Marquette Wolf of Mesquite, Texas, who won an $84 million jury verdict against U-Haul International in 2008.
“When the threat of punitives was there, the courthouse was a level playing field,” he said. “Now the threat of consequence isn’t there for billion-dollar corporations.”
Wolf’s victory, which included $63 million in punitives, was later cut to $45.7 million, half in punitive damages. It is on appeal.
Read Entire Article: Bloomberg.com
No comments:
Post a Comment