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Billion-Dollar U.S. Verdicts Vanish After Appeals, New Rulings

January 8, 2009

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.”

 

Read Article: Bloomberg

 

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