$150 Billion Award For Texas Fire Victim's Family
LA GRANGE (AP) – An attorney says a Texas jury has awarded the largest verdict he has ever heard of –– $150 billion to the family of a man who died years after being set afire as an 8-year-old.
The family's attorney Craig Sico says the punitive damage award is symbolic and the family expects none of it will be paid.
The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, is currently imprisoned on an unrelated sexual assault charge. He was never charged and denies involvement in the 2010 death of 20-year-old Robbie Middleton, who was doused with gasoline and set on fire 12 years earlier.
Sico says he asked jurors to make a statement by topping the $145 billion Florida verdict against tobacco companies in 2000.
Neither Collins nor his attorney appeared at the civil trial.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
