Bloomberg reports that "the billion dollar verdict has disappeared from U.S. courtrooms."
Biggest reason seems to be State Farm v. Cambpell and its progeny. Says Bloomberg "For the second time in the past three years, juries in 2008
issued no awards " of a billion or more.
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.
The largest verdict of the year did -- surprise! -- come from California. It was the ICO v. Lockheed case CalBizLit blogged about late last year here, and a few days ago here. A mere $606 million, or $630 million depending on the report you read.
Comments