It's only by coincidence that I posted two days ago about the top verdicts in 2005. Today, the 2006 list is out at Lawyers USA: "Top 10 Jury Verdicts of 2006."
Apparently, large verdicts are getting smaller--
Maybe it's just a 24-month coincidence, but for the second year in a row, the nation's largest verdicts to individual plaintiffs have fallen dramatically.
This past year's total is one third of the total for the previous year, which was half the total of the year before.
Although we can't use the most extreme verdicts to draw conclusions about the overall tort landscape in America, there does seem to be a trend away from the eye-popping awards that have dominated our Top Ten list for the last decade.
While a verdict of $216 million - this past year's largest - is still a substantial chunk of change, it is the smallest #1 verdict to an individual plaintiff since 1993.
What I like about the Lawyers USA series is that each verdict is accompanied by a longer article with a behind-the-scenes look at the trial. This year, for example, you can read about the third-largest nursing home verdict in U.S. history, Mark Robinson's federal Vioxx verdict, or a harassment trial without plaintiffs' experts.
Bookmark the site for later reading.
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