AUSTIN - Juries in Texas’ state and federal courts issued multi-million-dollar verdicts against corporations that have totaled $41,308,718,699 since 2009, making Texas one of the top states for thermonuclear verdicts, according to a new report by Marathon Strategies.
The report found that corporations on trial in the Lone Star State are more likely to face a thermonuclear verdict – judgments in excess of $100 million – than most elsewhere in the nation.
According to the report, 85 percent of the multimillion-dollar verdicts were intellectual property cases that were mostly filed in the Eastern District of Texas – a preferred venue for patent litigation.
The Western District of Texas has also seen an explosion in patent litigation over the past four years, and overtook the Eastern District in 2022 with a total of $1.45 billion in nuclear verdicts, the report found.
According to the report, nuclear verdicts in Texas largely stem from auto accident claims, particularly against the trucking industry. Motor vehicle cases accounted for 9 percent of all identified state verdicts (or 27 percent without the two outlier verdicts) for a total of $2.3 billion. Of these cases, $1.2 billion were against trucking companies, including over $500 million ordered by juries in Harris County alone.
Spending on legal advertising has also increased, the report found.
Between 2017 and 2021, spending on local advertisements for legal services in Texas increased by 28 percent, while the quantity of ads increased by 40 percent. Texas is also among the top-five states where, between 2017 and 2021, viewers saw the most legal services ads on television.
The American Transportation Research Institute has identified Texas as one of the top four most attractive states for investing in litigation, as the financing of cases is not regulated by statutes.
According to its website, Marathon Strategies is made up of campaign operatives, PR experts, researchers, journalists, digital and data experts, marketing specialists, graphic designers, brand managers, government aides, lawyers, and TV producers.