Every dot on the heat map is a real case with a real paper trail. This page explains what makes the cut, where the numbers come from, and how to cite them. The bar is deliberately strict: a verdict that cannot be traced to a dated public source does not appear on the dashboard, no matter how loudly it was reported.
A nuclear verdict is a jury award of $10 million or more. At $100 million, it crosses into thermonuclear territory. Those are the thresholds the dashboard tracks, and they follow the definitions used across the defense bar and the insurance industry.
The dashboard covers United States verdicts and judgments only. International awards do not appear, however large.
A verdict stays on the board once the original jury award met the threshold, even when the number later shrinks. Juries speak first; judges, appellate panels, and settlement tables speak later. When a verdict is reduced, remitted, appealed, or settled after the fact, the entry stays and the change in status is noted in the case detail where it is publicly known. What never appears: settlement-only outcomes. If no jury or court put the number on the record as an award or judgment, it is not a verdict and it is not counted here.
Every row requires a dated, publicly readable primary source before it enters the dataset. Sources that sit behind a login, a paywall, or a subscription gate are rejected outright, as is any verdict we cannot independently trace. Candidate entries are also checked against every case already on the board, so the same verdict never appears twice under two spellings of the same caption.
The dataset draws on, among others: the Tyson & Mendes Nuclear Verdict® Tracker, the Marathon Strategies Nuclear Verdict Report, the ATRA Judicial Hellholes® Report, public court records and verdict databases, and contemporaneous public reporting on individual trials. The full source list is published in the attribution footer of the dashboard itself.
Nuclear Verdict® is a registered trademark of Tyson & Mendes LLP. Judicial Hellholes® is a registered trademark of the American Tort Reform Association.
The dashboard is updated monthly. Each cycle sweeps new public reporting for qualifying verdicts, validates every candidate against the sourcing standard above, and refreshes the state-level statistics and trend lines. The "last updated" stamp in the dashboard attribution reflects the most recent completed cycle.
The dashboard is free to cite in articles, reports, presentations, and filings, with attribution. Lift this line as written:
Questions about a specific entry, or a qualifying verdict we missed? Write to us and include the primary source. If it clears the bar above, it goes on the board in the next monthly cycle.
Back to the Nuclear Verdicts® Heat Map →