Steve Ellis, the vice president of liability practices at the consulting firm Sedgwick, said trial attorneys use emotional manipulation to win "nuclear" verdicts, or verdicts larger than $10 million. Ellis shared his statement during a June 7 episode of the Sedgwick podcast, titled "The latest in litigation."
"We're seeing a lot more emotional appeals done by the plaintiffs bar," said Ellis. "They really seem to understand social behavior very well. They understand cognitive bias, and they understand how to manipulate people's emotions, particularly on juries. So that's been huge in leading to some of the nuclear verdicts that we've seen out there."
According to Ellis, by appealing to the emotions of jurors, attorneys can secure larger verdicts than if they relied solely on numbers. For example, he said that after an accident, attorneys may focus on the impact on their client’s life instead of the cost of the person’s medical bills in order to win verdicts that are much larger than the medical expenses.
Public relations firm Marathon Strategies found that New Jersey had 14 nuclear verdicts between 2009 and 2023, which totaled $1,480,387,446, according to a report issued in May. New Jersey’s total nuclear verdicts were the seventeenth largest in the country. Nationwide, 89 lawsuits resulted in nuclear verdicts against corporate defendants last year, marking a 15-year high. The number of nuclear verdicts across the country rose by 27% in 2023, with the median size of nuclear verdicts increasing to $44 million, up from $21 million in 2020.
Nuclear verdicts have had a significant impact on the insurance industry. According to a report from the Insurance Journal, one major effect is the strain on the availability and affordability of insurance coverage. As the size of jury awards increases, especially in cases involving trucking, pharmaceuticals, and product liability, insurers find it more challenging to underwrite these risks without raising premiums or reducing coverage limits.
Nationwide data from the Consumer Price Index indicates that the cost of car insurance rose 19.5% over the last year.
Ellis has worked with Sedgwick since June 2022. He previously spent seven years on the faculty of The University of Olivet and 30 years working for Liberty Mutual Insurance.
