Fee-fixing, Nursing home legal responsibility, Defamation

U.S. juries awarded 3 verdicts of $1 billion or greater for the third immediately yr in 2013, crowned with the aid of a $1.2 billion award towards Dow Chemical Co., the biggest ever in a rate-fixing case.

second turned into $1.1 billion provided via a Florida jury in July against Trans Healthcare Inc. to the estate of a lady who died following more than one falls — the largest-ever towards a nursing home. Lennar Corp. received the 0.33, $1 billion in a match in which a California developer and his employer had been accused of defaming the homebuilder as part of an extortion scheme.

The 9 verdicts of $1 billion or greater inside the past 3 years contrasts with the entire of 3 such awards within the previous 5 years, according to facts compiled through Bloomberg. The upward thrust of billion-greenback verdicts mirrors the boom in the value of settlements for allegations of company misconduct related to the economic disaster, said Carl Tobias, a law professor on the university of Richmond.

“there may be some kind of a punitive component,” Tobias stated. “Juries are an increasing number of willing to require defendants to pay extra if they’re awful actors, or there’s a notion that they’re awful actors.”

these biggest awards of 2013 got here as patent verdicts back to regular.

Patent Infringement

The top three jury verdicts of all kinds in 2012 have been in patent instances, every for $1 billion or more. the biggest patent award in 2013 was for $290 million, for Apple Inc. in opposition to Samsung Electronics Co. over phone technology that got here within the retrial of a part of one of the 2012 verdicts.

4 of the pinnacle 50 jury verdicts of 2013 were in patent- infringement cases, down from 11 in 2012, according to facts compiled by using Bloomberg.

average, awards of $a hundred million and up by means of U.S. juries fell one-1/3, to twenty in 2013 from an unusually high 31 in 2012. Juries in the past 15 years back an average of 20 verdicts of $100 million or above.

Patent verdicts had been a large reason for the drop, as awards in that range fell to two final 12 months from 8 in 2012.

The jumbo verdicts in 2012 probable have been an aberration, stated Douglas Cawley, who received the second one-largest patent verdict in 2013, $173 million for ParkerVision Inc. in opposition to Qualcomm Inc. over wi-fi-community era.

“Billion-greenback verdicts had been offered every so often. however it turned into extra of a accident that you had 3 of them in 2012,” Cawley stated in an interview.

Litigation Pipeline

The decline in 2013 doesn’t suggest a fashion, stated attorney William Lee of WilmerHale, who represented Apple.

“It’s the chaos principle operating,” Lee stated in an interview. “It’s tough for occasions to occur flippantly.”

large harm claims over patents remain in the litigation pipeline and will continue to deliver large verdicts, stated Lee, who has nine such instances set for trial inside the next yr.

“if you study the final 20 years, there has been a actual increase in massive instances and huge verdicts, specifically within the final five years,” he stated. “It’s an illustration of the importance of intellectual assets.”

A agreement in a case delivered by using Pfizer Inc. can also have prevented the yr’s high-quality hazard for one billion-dollar verdict. Pfizer won a $2.15 billion settlement over its heartburn drug Protonix in the course of trial before a jury could planned.

prevalent drugs

Pfizer claimed that the normal drug corporations Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. infringed the patent for the emblem-call drug. a brand new Jersey jury in 2010 had rejected the protection claims that the patent became invalid due to obviousness.

Pfizer and its companion, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., started out a separate trial in June looking for as a good deal as $2.five billion in damages from the defendants for selling normal Protonix before the patent expired.

The damages dispute by no means went to the jury.

“on the 7th day, our expert installed his range of $2.five billion,” stated Lee, who represented the patent-holders. “It settled on the 7th day.”

Pfizer announced on June 12 that Teva agreed to pay $1.6 billion and solar $550 million to settle the case, which started out in 2004. below the agreement, 64 percent of the $2.15 billion accord would go to Pfizer and the rest to Takeda.

big agreement

The settlement dwarfed all of the 2013 patent verdicts and changed into two times as excessive as the biggest in 2012. Had the jury presented the damages sought, it might have handed the most important-ever patent verdict, $1.sixty seven billion towards Abbott Laboratories, which became later reversed.

Antitrust awards furnished 3 of 2013’s mega verdicts, led by means of the $1.2 billion evaluation against Dow Chemical, accused of conspiring with four different agencies to restore fees on chemicals used to make urethanes.

The Kansas town, Kansas, jury provided $four hundred million. the amount turned into tripled to $1.2 billion under U.S. antitrust regulation.

The plaintiffs, a category of industrial purchasers of the chemicals used to make such merchandise as cushions, automobile seats and insulation, had settled with the other defendants for a complete of $139 million earlier than trial. The very last judgment become reduced to reflect the settlements.

Dow appealed and “has constantly denied plaintiffs’ allegations of charge fixing,” Louise Adhikari, a corporation spokeswoman, stated in an electronic mail. the problem changed into “very well investigated” by using the U.S. Justice branch from 2005 to 2007 and no charges had been brought, she stated. “Dow have to now not be held liable inside the civil case.”

Texas Jury

inside the other  antitrust instances, a jury in Texas presented $113.5 million in September in a claim that Becton Dickinson & Co. tried to monopolize the safety-syringe marketplace. the decision is issue to trebling to $340.5 million. Becton Dickinson stated it would appeal.

two chinese language nutrition C makers in March lost a $162.3 million verdict, after tripling, in a rate-fixing claim brought by a category of U.S. customers. The award, in view that cut to $158 million to reflect prior settlements and legal professionals’ charges, has been appealed.

All 3 were dwarfed by the $5.7 billion Visa Inc.- mastercard Inc. agreement with merchants over credit score-card swipe costs. It was reached in 2012 and permitted in 2013.

rare Verdicts

Such massive antitrust verdicts had been rare in preceding years. considering 2000, there were eight of $100 million or more, none from 2004 via 2011.

Then came one in 2012 and the three in 2012, which don’t imply a wave of antitrust awards, said Richard Koffman, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Dow case.

more may happen within the future as plaintiffs’ attorneys avoid weaker instances to pay attention on ones more likely to reach trial and defendants grow to be less in all likelihood to settle, he stated in an interview.

U.S. splendid courtroom decisions on magnificence moves and antitrust, consisting of one in 2007 that elevated the evidence needed to defeat a movement to dismiss, have raised the bar on which claims are filed, Koffman stated.

“We think longer and more difficult at the cases we convey, whether or not we've got sufficient to get past the evidentiary standard you didn’t have earlier than 2007,” Koffman said.

Dow argued that the choose in its antitrust case shouldn’t have allowed it to go forward as a class-action case. Dow stated ideal courtroom decisions, consisting of one in 2013 in an antitrust declare involving Comcast Corp. proscribing elegance certifications.

Comcast Case

“We suppose it doesn’t have any effect,” Koffman said of the Comcast choice. “The choose decided it didn’t have an effect on our case.”

This series of decisions has left some defendants greater inclined to go to trial and take a danger on a reversal of any adverse verdict on attraction, he stated.

“It is probably much more likely that defendants might roll the dice,” Koffman stated.