> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.consumernews.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Corporations shudder as jury verdicts fly past $10 million - URL: https://www.consumernews.ai/corporations-shudder-as-jury-verdicts-fly-past-10-million/ - Published: 2026-08-25T20:54:52.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-25T20:57:44.000Z - Description: Jurors, many of them Millennials, are handing out more $10 million "nuclear" verdicts than ever. - Author: James R. Hood - Tags: Consumer Protection - **Nearly 200 corporate jury verdicts of $10 million or more were recorded in 2025, up 40.7% from the previous year and the highest number tracked by research firm Marathon Strategies since 2009.** - **Forty awards exceeded $100 million and four topped $1 billion; product-liability cases alone generated $12 billion in large verdicts.** - **The researchers point to something beyond increasingly serious lawsuits: declining public trust in corporations, particularly among younger jurors, may be making juries more willing to punish companies they believe behaved irresponsibly.** It's not a good time to be a big corporation in America. Juries don't like you. And they've been demonstrating that by handing out a stunning number of verdicts that exceed $10 million. Nearly 200 lawsuits against corporate defendants produced awards of at least $10 million during 2025, according to a [new report](https://marathonstrategies.com/report/corporate-verdicts-go-thermonuclear-2025-edition/?ref=consumernews.ai) from strategic communications and research firm [Marathon Strategies](https://marathonstrategies.com/?ref=consumernews.ai). That's a 40.7% increase from 2024 and the highest annual number the firm has identified since it began tracking such cases in 2009\. The litigation and insurance industries commonly call awards of $10 million or more "nuclear verdicts." And corporate executives are looking for shelter. In its survey of 1,000 business leaders, Sentry’s [2025 C-Suite Stress Index](https://assets.ctfassets.net/xgr7yhvqn20n/6hyHGysuYRrJo7ZaDOTslw/b8de9bf98d47a344fcb518ae7af97a31/2025%5FC-Suite%5FStress%5FIndex%5F-%5FReport.pdf?ref=consumernews.ai) found that: - For the vast majority (82%), a multimillion-dollar verdict would likely put them out of business. - Nearly three-quarters (72%) of executives say increased litigation and multimillion-dollar-verdicts are a significant problem in their industry. - Almost a quarter (24%) say recent increases in nuclear verdicts are a “massive” problem for companies in their industry. Looking for an example? How about the [$567 million verdict](https://www.consumernews.ai/meta-ordered-to-pay-567-million-and-change-facebook-and-instagram-to-protect-children/) a New Mexico jury returned against Meta in a case that argued the company's social media products harmed children. ### Corporate mistrust enters the jury box Marathon identifies several forces contributing to the trend, including social pessimism, weakening tort-reform protections and the public becoming accustomed to hearing enormous dollar figures. But the report also points to growing mistrust of big corporations. And it points to the growing number of Millennials and other younger jurors. They tend to be more sympathetic to plaintiffs – the people who have been injured – and also less trustful of what corporate executives and lawyers say. That's important because jurors are often asked to consider corporate behavior as they recommend a verdict and, often, an award. Did executives know about a danger? Did they ignore warnings? Did they conceal information? Did they put profits ahead of safety? When jurors conclude the answer is yes, increasingly they appear willing to send a very expensive message. ## Product liability leads the way For consumers, the most significant category may be product liability. Twenty-nine product-liability cases generated verdicts of $10 million or more last year, totaling approximately $12 billion — nearly half the dollar value of all nuclear verdicts identified in the report. Large verdicts also appeared in trade-secret and intellectual-property disputes, workplace-negligence cases and numerous other types of litigation. Not surprisingly, some industries are more likely to get hit hard, most notably pharmaceuticals, automakers, beverage companies, banks, hotels and restaurants, agricultural-chemical manufacturers and oil and gas companies. Insurance companies were defendants in five nuclear-verdict cases totaling $390 million. Researchers also see potential new sources of large verdicts emerging, including litigation involving [PFAS "forever chemicals](https://www.consumernews.ai/pfas-research-roundup-what-studies/)," artificial intelligence, deepfakes and climate-related claims. ### A post-pandemic phenomenon Like many other phenomena, you can perhaps blame the rise in verdictmaxxing to the pandemic. Marathon's previous analysis found that 135 corporate cases produced verdicts of $10 million or more in 2024, up 52% from 2023\. That report found that the number of nuclear verdicts had increased **309% since 2020**, when pandemic-related court closures temporarily suppressed litigation. There is an important wrinkle in the latest numbers, however. While the number of very large verdicts rose sharply in 2025, their combined value actually declined from the unusually high $31.3 billion recorded in 2024 to $25.6 billion last year, the Marathon Strategies [report](https://marathonstrategies.com/report/corporate-verdicts-go-thermonuclear-2025-edition/?ref=consumernews.ai) found. In other words, the story isn't simply that individual awards are getting bigger. Very large awards are becoming more common and appearing in more industries. ## Are juries angry — or are the cases worse? What's the reason for the nuclear verdicts? Insurance companies and corporate interests blame a dysfunctional court system and, of course, the lawyers who specialize in personal injury and product liability. Their solution: limit damages and make it harder for citizens to have their day in court. With Republicans in office, some of those complaints have been heard. Eight states – Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina – enacted so-called "tort reforms" in 2025, according to Marathon. But consumer advocates and plaintiffs' attorneys offer a very different interpretation. Large verdicts can also result from evidence of serious corporate misconduct, catastrophic injuries or attempts to conceal known dangers. Punitive damages are specifically intended not merely to compensate a victim but to punish especially egregious behavior and discourage its repetition. That makes it risky to treat every $100 million verdict as evidence that the legal system has gone haywire. Sometimes the jury may instead be saying that **a** very large corporation requires a very large penalty before the punishment means anything. Tort reform won't do much to solve the trust problem and, if consumers notice, it may make things worse. ## Consumers ultimately pay — but that's only half the story Businesses and insurers frequently argue that large verdicts eventually filter down to consumers through higher insurance premiums, higher prices and reduced availability of products and services. There's truth to that. Liability costs are business costs, and businesses ultimately recover many of their costs from customers. Insurers facing larger claims may also seek higher premiums. But plaintiff litigators and many consumers say that if corporations want to avoid big damage awards, they should cause less damage – invest more in product safety, disclose risks earlier, treat customers more fairly and respond faster when something goes wrong. ### AI could provide the next test The report's identification of artificial intelligence and deepfakes as emerging litigation risks is worth watching. Courts are only beginning to confront questions involving autonomous systems, AI-generated defamation, algorithmic discrimination and AI products that cause financial or physical harm. Those cases could produce precisely the ingredients associated with nuclear verdicts: enormous companies, unfamiliar technology, potentially large numbers of affected consumers and internal corporate decisions about risks that may later become evidence before a jury. The central question will be familiar even if the technology isn't: > **What did the company know, when did it know it, and what did it do about it?** That makes the rise of nuclear verdicts more than an insurance-industry story. It may also be an early indication that juries increasingly see themselves as one of the remaining institutions capable of holding powerful corporations accountable. And when jurors decide that a company deserves punishment, they're increasingly willing to add a lot of zeros.