In a lawsuit charging negligent maintenance of a tractor-trailer truck, a part of which broke off and killed the driver of a second vehicle. [Insurance Journal]
In a lawsuit charging negligent maintenance of a tractor-trailer truck, a part of which broke off and killed the driver of a second vehicle. [Insurance Journal]
3 Comments
Of the award, $100 Million was for punitive damages — meaning that the jury awarded $181 Million for economic and non-economic damages. Unless the decedent was someone like a tenured professor in neurology at Johns Hopkins Med School who held basic patents on ground braking treatments, and who was close to expanding those into additional areas which would create an affordable standard of care available world-wide, it is difficult to believe that the $181 Million portion of the damages is sufficiently founded in fact to withstand review. My guess is that the decedent’s family will discover that a run-away jury is not the plaintiff’s friend.
Well, if they cut the award by 90% it is still whopping verdict.
The article on this case does not tell us much.
While all lives have infinite and equal value in the eyes of God, the tort system was never intended to allow awards like this. There is no way the decedent in this case is worth anywhere near this kind of money and this case is another example why there need to be reasonable caps on jury awards.