High Jury Verdicts in Los Angeles, San Bernardino Counties Raise Eyebrows
Los Angeles County and neighboring San Bernardino County have recently been home to massive jury verdicts, often dwarfing verdicts in similar (and even related) cases in other jurisdictions. Some lawyers have claimed that this is a problematic trend specific to southern California juries, arguing they demonstrate a need for the expansion of arbitration in California civil matters or a cap on available damages for plaintiffs. Others see the system working as intended to bring justice to victims and hold wrongdoers accountable. Here are a few of the larger verdicts awarded by Los Angeles and San Bernardino juries in the past couple of years.
San Bernardino Verdicts
In September, a San Bernardino jury awarded the family of a 14-year-old boy $60 million at a trial related to a fatal 2016 traffic accident. The boy was killed while crossing an intersection near Apple Valley High School. The plaintiffs successfully argued that the condition of the crossing itself was responsible, specifically the lack of clear signage reducing the speed limit so near to a school zone. The jury found that the Town had been made aware of the danger of the crossing but had not fixed the problem, awarding the boy’s family $10 million for past non-economic damages and $50 million for future non-economic damages.
This was not the only verdict rendered against a southern California municipality in 2019. A jury in a different case awarded a 10-year-old boy and his mother $113.4 million after finding that San Bernardino’s Children and Family Services were responsible for a brutal beating that left the child with severe brain damage and rendered him quadriplegic. County officials allegedly failed to properly follow-up on reports of abuse, thus permitting the abuser to continue until the boy was put into a coma. Future pain and suffering accounted for $100 million of the award, while the jury awarded $9.9 million for future medical expenses, $2.9 million for loss of future earnings, and $602,625.66 for past medical expenses. On November 6, 2019, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge overturned the jury verdict, finding that the county social worker had complied “with all mandatory duties required by the county.”
Los Angeles Verdicts
Los Angeles has seen several large jury verdicts in recent years, as well. In 2017, Los Angeles became home to the largest talcum powder verdict among a series of nationwide lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies accused of hiding links between their talcum powder products and ovarian cancer. The California plaintiff was awarded $417 million, including $347 in punitive damages. The punitive damages amount alone surpassed the prior largest verdict. Another jury returned a $40 million verdict against J&J just this September based on similar allegations about their baby powder products.
In another case, auto manufacturer Nissan was hit with a $25 million verdict in 2017 after a Los Angeles jury determined that faulty brakes in an Infinity SUV were behind a fatal accident that killed three people and resulted in an elderly driver being wrongfully charged with vehicular manslaughter.
The County of Los Angeles was, itself, hit with a large jury verdict in 2017 after an employee at a county hospital ran over the legs of a pedestrian with a forklift. The plaintiff rejected the county’s $1.5 million settlement offer just before trial, and again rejected a $5 million settlement offer made during jury deliberations. The plaintiff was rewarded for his belief in the strength of his case: After deliberation, the jury returned a $10.8 million verdict in his favor.
Just this June, a Los Angeles jury awarded a Jack in the Box employee $15.4 million in response to alleged age and disability discrimination claims by a 53-year-old employee injured on the job. The award included $10 million in punitive damages.
Are Large Jury Awards a Problem in California?
These are just a few of the verdicts issued in and around Los Angeles in recent years, larger than awards in similar matters in other jurisdictions. Moreover, these awards generally include massive speculative, non-economic, and often non-compensatory damages such as estimates of future pain and suffering or punitive damages. Some defense attorneys argue that the size and nature of these awards are unjustified and should be curbed, perhaps by encouraging or requiring arbitration in certain circumstances or by placing caps on punitive damages.
There are no caps on punitive damage awards in California for personal injury matters. Other states do have such rules. Nevada, for example, caps punitive damages at $300,000 where compensatory damages equal less than $100,000, and up to three times compensatory damages where cases involve more than $100,000 in economic damages. Some defense attorneys posit that California’s lack of a limitation on punitive damages could run afoul of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution by allowing civil plaintiffs to excessively punish defendants for noncriminal matters. The fact that the recent large verdict in San Bernardino was overturned by the judge based on a lack of evidence lends support to this position.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys, on the other hand, are content to continue using punitive damages as a means for punishment and deterrence of particularly egregious conduct.
