By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: “Social inflation” is a phrase that crops up these days when people are talking about civil damage awards. As an explanation for a wave in so-called “nuclear verdicts,” social inflation refers to the phenomena of typical damage award levels rising over time as the population gets more comfortable with those big […]
Account for ‘Social Inflation’ in Damages Awards Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Here’s one area where there’s a conflict between social science and practical intuitions: Should the civil defendant offer their own damages number to anchor jurors on a lower amount? The social science on the subject is relatively clear: If the jurors get to the point of awarding damages, a lower number
Damages Defense: Carefully Set the Smaller Anchor Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The damage amounts awarded by civil juries can sometimes seem to be random or capricious. Lawyers and insurance representatives arguing for a settlement will sometimes call it a “crap-shoot.” It is true that there is no precise predictability to it. When you have a chance to see mock jurors deliberate
Damages: Guide Your Jurors so they get the ‘gist’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When jurors are awarding damages in a civil case, the law looks at what they’re doing in a binary way: They are either compensating the plaintiff for what they have lost, or they are awarding additional amounts to set an example. In short, anything outside of “making the plaintiff whole”
Ask What Jurors Are Trying to Do with Damages Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So we have made it through the 2022 midterm elections. As is typical, the party out of power seems to have made some gains, although so far at least, the anticipated “Red Wave” doesn’t seem large enough to surf. Going into the election, the common wisdom was that that the broadly felt
Jury Damages: Expect the Fundamentals to Still Apply Even in a Down Economy Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As a legal category, punitive damages are not very common in U.S. civil trials, being available and awarded in just six percent of cases. But in the broader sense of “punitive,” the motivation to punish or to correct behavior doubtlessly underlies many other categories of damages. For example, the subjectively troublesome
Learn What Motivates Punitive Damages Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “Seeing is believing,” and based on the social science, we tend to apply that adage even when the visual aid does not rationally add to the substantive proof. Visuals makes things easier to call to mind later (which makes them feel more true), while also making the idea more vivid,
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When civil litigation is being discussed by those outside the courtroom and outside the legal field, what stands out is often the perception, at least, of very high damages. The high-dollar figure being awarded, based on a questionable claim, is the poster child for the abuses of litigation. But for
Normalize Your Damages: Five Ways Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: For plaintiffs, the topic of monetary damages can be a bit of a mystery. In making the request to a jury, the appropriately named ad damnum, the question is: How much? Obviously, more is better, but common sense and experience probably tell you that there is a point at which higher
Damages: Know Your Anchor Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In the long-running legal battle between mobile phone titans Apple and Samsung, the former just received a verdict of $539 million for the latter’s infringement of five design and utility patents. After spending days on the calculations, the San Jose jury returned an amount that seemed to be driven by calculations: exactly $533,316,606
Remember, With Damages It’s the Message and Not Just the Math Read More »