COVID-19 and Nuclear Verdicts: Disastrous Combination or Phantom Fear?

In the decade leading up to the COVID crisis, jury verdicts were trending steeply upward and far surpassing rational values for the claims in a case.

The issue became so bad that the term ‘nuclear verdict’ arose for verdicts exceeding $10 million, although extreme examples exceed $1 billion in damages.

As COVID ravaged countries across the globe, it created seismic shifts in how many businesses operate and often worsened popular opinion of corporations.

So questions naturally arise about its potential effects on nuclear verdicts. During the session ‘Nuclear Verdicts: Are They Over or Are They Coming?’ at this year’s RIMS Live virtual conference speakers Samantha Siddiqui, senior manager claims with CBRE, and Robert Tyson, managing partner at Tyson & Mendes attempted to answer some of these questions.