Top States for Corporate Nuclear Verdicts (2009-2022) Overview

Though it is difficult to predict when and where a nuclear verdict will land, case history and legislative environments provide some indication. 

Among the top 10 states (when combining federal and state verdict totals), Marathon’s analysis found significant federal and state court overlap for corporate nuclear verdicts in just one state, New York, which was largely driven by a single billion-dollar case. Overall, state courts accounted for $108 billion in corporate nuclear verdicts compared to federal courts’ $61 billion.

Largely, verdicts in the top states were dominated by either federal or state courts in each jurisdiction. This is due to a variety of reasons outlined in the following pages, including local laws that encourage certain types of cases more prone to large verdicts, the presence or absence of limits on punitive damages, court procedures that favor plaintiffs, state regulations friendly to lawsuit financing by third parties, trial tactics common among attorneys in certain states, and volumes of advertising paid for by trial lawyers, among other factors.