Courthouse Sees Big Awards
Wednesday’s $3-billion verdict against Philip Morris is just one of many giant jury awards to come out of the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s Central Civil West Courthouse.
In 1999, a record $4.9-billion verdict against General Motors in a vehicle-fire case was issued by a jury at Central Civil West. (The trial judge later reduced the award, and the case is on appeal.)
Central Civil West produces a lot of big verdicts because the six to eight judges assigned there hear only so-called long-cause cases, which involve dozens of witnesses and are expected to last more than 30 days, said Santa Monica attorney Larry Feldman.
In addition, some attorneys say the jury pool at Central Civil West is likely to be working class--and therefore hostile to large corporations--because many downtown executives and white-collar workers get themselves excused from juries.
Central Civil West “juries there are willing to punish if they think somebody has done wrong,” said Feldman, former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn.
Feldman himself won a $28-million award from McDonnell Douglas in a wrongful-termination case there. The same firm that won the GM verdict also secured a $45.6-million legal-malpractice verdict at the courthouse against the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
