Top Verdicts & Settlements 2009 
Top Verdicts & Settlements has long been one of our most anticipated sections of the year. So we’re particularly proud that this year we’ve been able to create our most comprehensive, most ambitious, most authoritative annual report of Missouri’s Top Verdicts & Settlements ever.
Top verdicts of decade show decline in size of awards
Every January, LawyersUSA announces the “Top 10 Verdicts of the Year.” To qualify, verdicts must be to an individual plaintiff, defined as a single person, family or small group of people injured in a single incident who had their claims tried in one case before the same jury.
Decade’s largest jury verdict sent message ‘to the world’
In 2002, jurors in Jackson County awarded $2.2 billion to a cancer patient who was given diluted chemotherapy drugs by pharmacist Robert Courtney. The jurors said they wanted to “send a message out to the world.”
Out-state counties produce largest defense verdicts, too
Big city plaintiffs lawyers often complain about traveling to rural circuit courts to try cases because of the perceived conservative nature of juries. While a number of large plaintiff awards are on this year’s plaintiff lists, there are also some big rural defense wins on the list below.
Jurors sent a message with this year’s largest verdict
If you then told them it would be an $89 million jury verdict over a wrongful death caused by a drunken driver, they might have laughed and questioned your sanity.
RURAL VALUES
An $89 million Franklin County verdict blew apart the statistics for plaintiffs injury awards, overpowered business verdicts and settlements and confirmed once again that it’s possible to get high-dollar awards in outstate circuits.
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