You’ve likely seen by now media reports about an Illinois federal jury’s $150 million punitive award against AbbVie in a case brought by a plaintiff who alleged that AbbVie’s low-T medication AndroGel caused his heart attack.
The jury found against the plaintiff on his strict-liability and negligence claims. It found in favor of the plaintiff on his fraudulent-misrepresentation claim. However, the jury awarded no compensatory damages on that claim; nevertheless, it imposed $150 million in punitive damages.
Continue Reading Federal Jury Returns $150 Million Punitive Verdict Against AbbVie—Without Awarding Any Compensatory Damages For The Plaintiff’s Injury—As A Result Of Multiply Flawed Jury Instructions
There have been subsequent developments in several cases about which we have posted in recent months.
The drafting of jury instructions on punitive damages presents unique challenges for defense lawyers. On the one hand, it is generally necessary to ask for an instruction that goes beyond existing law in order to preserve the argument that the law should be changed. That is how the harm-to-nonparties issue was teed up in Philip Morris v. Williams. And just importantly, because most pattern instructions on punitive damages are fairly perfunctory, it is often necessary to propose a more expansive alternative to ensure that the jury is adequately apprised of even existing law.
In a