By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – The record setting 11-point-9 billion dollar natural gas royalties verdict an Alabama jury delivered against Exxon Mobil was the largest jury verdict in the nation last year ... it was also bigger than the rest of the Top 100 verdicts combined.
The National Law Journal and VerdictSearch have released their annual compilation of the top 100 jury verdicts for 2003. The Exxon natural gas verdict was alone at the top with no competition in sight. In second place was a 934 million-dollar verdict delivered in a lawsuit between two companies in California.
The combined total of the Top 100 verdicts is 7-point-6 billion dollars ... more than 4 billion dollars short of the Exxon verdict.
Alabama first sued Exxon Mobil in 1999, after accusing the oil company of purposely undercounting millions of dollars in royalties from natural gas well drilled along the Alabama coast. The first trial resulted in a 3-point-5 billion-dollar verdict. But Exxon appealed and that verdict was overturned. That led to the larger 11-point-9 billion dollar verdict delivered last year.