Weekly Brief: Patent Jury Awards, Law Firm Hiring, Scalia's Hat
The risk of a large verdict has always been a major factor in any litigation. In recent years, the potential for a punitive damages instruction reaching a jury and a consequent verdict has grown as well. US juries have not...more
Earlier this year, a district court for the Middle District of Florida upheld a jury award of $225,000 in punitive damages in a debt collection case finding the defendant’s conduct “reprehensible” based on the physical harm...more
On June 12, a federal jury in Camden, New Jersey returned a verdict in favor of Shannon Phillips, a white Starbucks Regional Director who claimed that she was terminated from her management level position on the basis of her...more
In a recent trade secrets litigation in the United States District Court in the Northern District of California, a jury awarded the plaintiffs 40 million dollars, half of which was punitive damages. The Court also...more
The Asbestos Case Tracker has been following developing issues regarding hundreds of asbestos exposure cases involving plaintiffs who worked for W.R. Grace at the Libby, Montana mine and facilities. Recently, a Great Falls,...more
An eight-person jury returned a $125 million verdict against a major retailer in favor of a Down syndrome woman claiming disability discrimination. The case, EEOC v. Walmart Stores East LP, U.S. District Court for the Eastern...more
In Pinter-Brown v. Regents of the University of California, the California Court of Appeal’s Second Appellate District recently reversed a blockbuster $13 million judgment that was entered against UCLA in favor of one of its...more
On February 27, 2020, in a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit in Ramirez v. TransUnion, LLC held that every member of the class must have standing in order to recover damages at the final judgment stage. Judge McKeown filed a...more
In many product liability, mass tort, and consumer cases the gravest—and probably least predictable—risk is a runaway punitive damages award. Unlike compensatory damages, which are tied to the plaintiff’s actual injuries,...more
Jury Finds Retail Giant Suspended and Failed to Accommodate Longtime Deaf Employee With Visual Impairment - MADISON, Wis. - Late yesterday, a jury determined that Walmart violated federal law when it refused to...more
For the second time this calendar year, a Los Angeles jury ordered an employer to pay $11 million to an employee who claimed to have been sexually harassed. And, once again, the amount of punitive damages ($8 million) dwarfed...more
Just another day in paradise in Los Angeles… Unless you happen to be an employer. Continuing the recent spate of multi-million dollar verdicts, an LA jury awarded a former police officer $7 million on her sex discrimination...more
A federal jury last week returned a $473.5 million verdict against the world’s largest pork producer for nuisances caused by three industrial-scale hog farms. The verdict is the largest of three matching verdicts against...more
For the past 13 years, I’ve written the cover story of the state bar magazine, Arizona Attorney, about Arizona verdicts. The latest one is out. Here are 2016’s top Arizona verdicts, significant defense verdicts, punitive...more
In one of our recent posts we touched on punitive damages in the context of one of the Pinnacle Hip bellwether trials. In this post, we address another interesting aspect of punitive damages: whether they can be used to...more
Earlier this summer, a California jury awarded nearly $186 million – $800,000 in compensatory damages and $185 million in punitive damages – to a former AutoZone store manager who filed suit against the auto parts retailer...more
A few weeks ago, we told you about a jury awarding over eight million dollars to the families of two factory workers who were killed by a co-worker in 2010. As it turns out, that award was just the beginning. Last week, a...more
Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. JT Walker Indus., Inc., No. 2:08-02043-MBS, 2014 WL 6773517 (D.S.C. Dec. 2, 2014). The U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina sets aside a jury’s verdict awarding punitive...more
The record $185 million punitive damage award by a California jury in November 2014 against AutoZone has been widely reported. This huge verdict raises immediate questions: How did this happen? What circumstances led the jury...more
In State of Arizona v. ASARCO LLC, WL 6918577, published December 10, 2014, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an award of $300,000 in punitive damages did not violate due process even though no compensatory damages...more
California Jury Awards Record $185M Verdict to Female Employee - Why it matters: A California jury made national headlines and terrified employers across the country when it awarded $185 million in punitive damages...more
Last month, a federal district judge in San Diego upheld a $185 million jury verdict in a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against AutoZone Stores. The verdict is a record for a single-plaintiff employment discrimination...more
Causing waves to travel through the legal community, a California jury has recently ordered a woman’s former employer to pay her $186 million in punitive damages. In the case, the woman claimed that she had been demoted after...more
We’ve been following the post-trial proceedings in Allen v. Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc., a product-liability action involving the diabetes drug Actos. The case garnered headlines earlier this year when the...more
Jury Finds Employer Refused to Promote Employee Because She Was Female - ATLANTA - An Atlanta jury has awarded $500,000 against a Westerville, Ohio-based warehouse and distribution company for failing to promote a...more