HOW TIME DOES TELL
Sep 26, 1994
The National Law Journal
Supplement : Verdicts Revisited (excerpt)
How Time Does Tell
After large jury verdicts hit the headlines, there's rarely any followup.
To track down what happens to jury verdicts once the jury goes home. The
National Law Journal has selected and investigated 100 typical cases from
1990 involving jury awards of $ 1 million or more. The cases selected
include nearly all the largest verdicts from 1990, as well as some jury
awards in the $ 1 million to $ 5 million range, in order to compare juridical
treatment of smaller and larger awards. Cases were selected from all major
categories, including medical malpractice, products liability, libel,
antitrust, breach of contract, insurance bad faith, wrongful termination
and others. The NLJ chose to go back as far 1990, because the vast majority
of the cases would have passed through at least the first stage in the
appellate process. And at the same time, it is not so long ago that the
lawyers involved would be unable to find files or recall what happened.
Attempts were made to contact attorneys on both sides, but not all lawyers
returned calls. Not surprisingly, the attorneys on the losing sides were
less easy to reach. Court records have been used to supplement missing
information. There were several hundred verdicts of $ 1 million or more
in 1990. This is what happened to 100 of them.
WRONGFUL DEATH
CASE: McDonald v. Luxaire Corp., -00101 (Cir. ., Mobile Co., Ala.)
JURY AWARD: $ 50 million
STATUS:
ON DEC. 23, 1985, Nel and Joe Wilburn, their daughter, son-in-law and
granddaughter died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a defective
forced warm-air furnace, says plaintiffs' attorney Joseph M. Brown
Jr. of Mobile, Ala.'s Cunningham, Bounds, Yance, Crowder & Brown.
Mr. Wilburn's brother, Gerald, and Sylvester McDonald, that father
of the dead son-in- law, Mark McDonald, filed a wrongful death/products
liability action against Luxaire Corp., the maker of the furnace, and
Mobile Gas Co., which previously had inspected and repaired the furnace.
Before trial, Mobile Gas settled, paying $ 11.5 million to the plaintiffs.
The trial was against Luxaire alone. In March 1990, a Mobile jury ordered
Luxaire, then a subsidiary of Westinghouse Corp., to pay the plaintiffs
$ 50 million. Under the conditions of the trial, the defendant was not
entitled to offsets from the Mobile Gas settlement, Mr. Brown notes. In
May 1991, Luxaire settled, paying an undisclosed though "substantial"
amount, Mr. Brown says.