Bethany Dow

A Dallas jury found Charter Communications liable for the December 2019 murder of 83-year-old customer Betty Jo McClain Thomas by Roy Holden Jr., a Spectrum field technician who had serviced her home the day before, and for forging her signature on an arbitration agreement after her death. The jury awarded $375 million in actual damages and $7 billion in punitive damages. The family then remitted the punitive award down to twice the compensatory damages, in line with the due-process ratio limits the U.S. Supreme Court set in State Farm v. Campbell, and the trial court entered judgment for $1.147 billion. The family later agreed to a further remittitur to $262 million rather than keep defending the larger figure on appeal. Charter then settled confidentially for less than that, funded by its liability insurance, while its appeal to the Fifth Court of Appeals was still pending, and the appeal was dismissed at Charter's own request.

A Tarrant County jury found Walmart 80 percent at fault, including gross negligence, after a Walmart employee backed a customer's vehicle into Carl Chojnicki at a Walmart Auto Care Center in North Richland Hills, Texas, breaking his femur. On April 25, 2024, the jury awarded him $6 million: $1.482 million in compensatory damages and $4.518 million in exemplary damages. Walmart appealed, and while the appeal was pending the parties settled; the Fort Worth Court of Appeals set aside the trial court's judgment by agreement in October 2024, so no public dollar figure from the case legally stands today.