The latest edition of the Mississippi Jury Verdict Reporter hit newsstands this week, and it confirms something that I’ve talked about on this blog for a while. Defense verdicts and small plaintiff verdicts do not get publicity.

The April edition reports on 19 recent verdicts. 9 of the 19 were outright defense verdicts. Of the rest, consider some of these jackpot justice plaintiff verdicts and their venues:

• $80,000 (Madison County)
• $5,740 (Harrison County)
• $25,000 (Pearl River County)
• $20,000 (Jackson County)
• $61,833 (Lamar County)
• $5,500 (Pike County).

So 15 of 19 verdicts were defense verdicts or verdicts under six figures. Here are the amounts and venues of the other 4 plaintiff verdicts:

• $3,603,712 (Hinds County/ I lost my Battleship board game blueprints case)
• $874,502 (federal court Jackson/ sexual discrimination)
• $2,011,702 (federal court Gulfport/ bad faith breach of contract)
• $200,000 (federal court Oxford/ contract type case).

Admittedly, Hinds County is a venue where a plaintiff can get a large verdict. But three of these verdicts were in federal court.

Federal court in Mississippi does not have a reputation as being plaintiff friendly. Most reports that I am getting from lawyers trying cases in federal court are that the juries look conservative and the judges are fair.

No one ever talks about all the venues where if the plaintiff can get any verdict at all, then it will be for a small amount. And there are a lot more of those type venues in Mississippi than venues where plaintiffs can get a large verdict.

But we need caps in Mississippi? Seriously?