Free Newsletter
Juries in St. Louis County and St. Louis City used 2008 to kill any lingering stereotypes about their ideological leanings.
Long considered a venue that’s home to more conservative juries, a St. Louis County jury last May handed out a record-breaking $21 million verdict to a man paralyzed in a 2004 car wreck.
In two other cases breaking the top 10 list of plaintiffs’ verdicts, juries from St. Louis County awarded multimillion dollar verdicts.
On the flip side, in 2008, juries from St. Louis City showed a new-found propensity for siding with the defense, particularly in medical malpractice cases. Juries there accounted for four of the top 10 defense verdicts from 2008, including one in which a city jury rejected a $50 million products liability claim against Chrysler.
Both plaintiff and defense lawyers credited recent population shifts between St. Louis County and St. Louis City.
Those changes have blurred the economic and cultural borders between the circuits, they said, but the old standard is still true: A good case with compelling facts will merit good results, no matter where it’s tried.
-Allison Retka
Top Verdicts & Settlements 2008:
Federal trucking cases top list of settlements
Business to business cases: 2008 was the year of nine digits
