Top Ten Verdicts Defy "Run-Away" Label
Contrary to the oft repeated mantra that jury verdicts continue to escalate out of control, the nation's largest verdicts to individual plaintiffs have fallen dramatically for the second consecutive year. For the top ten jury verdicts awarded to individual plaintiffs, this past year's total is one third of the total for the previous year, which was half the total of the year before.
While this year’s top verdict, an award of $216 million , is a significant amount of money – it is the smallest top since 1993. The median verdict was less than half of the median the previous year.
Two years ago, all 10 verdicts compiled by Lawyers USA were for more than $100 million (and two were for more than a billion.) However, this past year only three verdicts of the top ten were above $100 million. The total amount awarded in the top ten verdicts was $815 million, compared to $2.9 billion in 2005 and $5.2 billion in 2004.
It’s not because the world is becoming a safer place. The verdicts may simply reflect the recent caps placed on specific types of damages, such as on non-economic damages, and on certain types of claims, such as medical malpractice. The top verdict for 2006 involved a man who died after an unlicensed emergency room physician's assistant misdiagnosed his stroke as a sinus infection. Although the verdict was one of the largest malpractice verdicts in Florida history, the plaintiff's attorney, David Dickey, predicts that it is likely to be the last of its kind because of recent caps.
For many people with legitimate medical malpractice claims, when caps are in place, lawyers can no longer afford to take these cases on a contingency basis because of the extensive amount of time and money required to prepare the case. According to the Texas Alliance for Patient Access, med-mal filings in the state's four largest cities dropped by 50 percent this past year following the enactment of extensive damages caps.
Punitive damages award for the Top Ten verdicts this past year was one-sixth of the total the year before. Punitives also account for a much smaller portion of the overall awards this past year - 38 percent of the aggregate award, compared to 70 percent over the previous nine years.
But even with diminished numbers of med mal cases, Texas had the most Top Ten verdicts (3), followed by Florida and California (2 each). For the second year in a row, New York had no Top Ten verdicts. Texas (22) surpassed New York (21) as the state with the most Top Ten verdicts over the last 12 years. They were followed closely by California (19) and more distantly by Florida (13). It is interesting to note that New York led all states for the most Top Ten verdicts (21) during the first 12 years that Lawyers USA compiled the list, and had at least one verdict on the list for 11 consecutive years until 2005.
For information on Colorado caps for medical malpractice awards, see Limits On Med Mal Fees Barrier to Justice.