$500 Million and Growing

The top 10 awards each were worth $30 million or more and the number of personal injury verdicts over $1 million peaked at more than 600, Lawyers Alert magazine said in its Jan.. 18 issue. Juries awarded more than $475 million in the 10 largest cases of 2009.

The jump showed national efforts to limit lawsuit damages may have failed completely, Lawyers Alert publisher Larry Bodine said.

In the mid-2000s, insurers and corporations began campaigns around the country to cap jury awards in the tort system, in which civil actions are brought for wrongful acts.

“The so-called tort reform movement has just run out of gas and failed,” Bodine said. “Either they’ve given up or it’s just stopped working or people aren’t buying it anymore.”

The largest verdict in 2010 was a $77 million award to a Chicago baby left mute, blind and paralyzed by doctors who gave him an anti-asthma drug.

“When jurors see a horrible injury and an unrepentant wrongdoer, they make a seven figure award,” Bodine said.

Second highest was $55 million that went to a San Antonio, Texas, widow bilked out of her husband’s death benefits by insurance company agents.

The list surveyed only personal injury and civil tort awards to individuals. Contract cases and awards to businesses were not included.

Stephen Paris, president-elect of the Defense Research Institute, an organization of defense lawyers, agreed that the tort reform campaign is slowing but criticized the “lottery mentality” of many jurors.

“These dollars, it’s like monopoly money,” Paris said. “I sometimes get the feeling that every case you’re defending, you’re betting the farm.”

At least 21 states have laws limiting the amount juries can award plaintiffs, Bodine said.

Lawyers Alert found juries awarded mammoth verdicts for the first time in some parts of the country.

Missouri had three awards above $20 million within a few weeks of each other. There were also big awards in Kansas, Arizona and rural Georgia.

“In urban areas, juries traditionally make bigger awards because the sense of money is different,” said Tom Harrison, editor of Lawyers Alert. “Perhaps the awareness of what’s going on in cities is beginning to permeate the consciousness of people in other areas.”

Large jury awards often don’t end up in the pockets of plaintiffs. Awards of $1 million or more are reduced an average of 30 percent through post-trial motions and appeals, according to a study by the Rand Corporation’s Institute for Civil Justice.

Bodine said juries are making larger awards because lawyers forgo emotional appeals, relying instead on experts who detail how much money an injured plaintiff needs for care.

10 largest civil lawsuit awards in 2010.

$77 million awarded to a Chicago baby who was left mute, blind and paralyzed by doctors who gave him an anti-asthma drug.

$55 million awarded to a San Antonio, Texas, widow cheated out of her husband’s death benefits by insurance company agents.

$51 million awared to a civil rights advocate beaten and jailed on false charges by five New York police officers.

$50 million awarded to the parents of a West Palm Beach, Fla., teenager killed by a drunken driver.

$45 million awarded to representatives of a brain-injured woman left in a vegetative state after a truck slammed into a car in Kansas City, Mo.

$44 million to the family of a 7-year-old Los Angeles boy who nearly drowned in a neighbor’s swimming pool and was left with brain damage. A friend’s mother who was supervising the boy was held responsible.

$43 million awarded after two Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishermen were killed by fumes from an improperly labeled chemical that preserves color in the shrimp.

$39 million awarded to the family of an 84-year-old woman who died a month after entering a Houston nursing home, where she was given drugs and strangled herself trying to get out of a bed restraint.

$34 million awarded after a Coast Guard instructor in Wichita, Kan., died of leukemia contracted from repeated exposure to benzene in an oil testing kit. The benzene supplier had never warned it could cause a fatal illness.

$34 million in a libel case against The Philadelphia Inquirer, involving a reporter arrested for wiretapping. The article led to the largest libel verdict against an American news organization.