The jury was going to find whatever they had to find to make sure this guy got paid for his injuries. Juries are like that. They think it is there job to make things better, any way they can. They can’t fix the guy, but they can make him rich. So they do.
The fact that somebody (the taxpayers) have to pay the bill never enters into their minds.
On what do you base this claim? Is it anything beyond your feelings?
Perhaps in California and particularly in that part of the state there might be such an attitude. But in most parts of the country just the opposite seems to be the case. And if a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the law, the court can set it aside. Such an occurance happened in a trial I watched last year where a family riding motorcycles together were run over by a guy who drifted out of his lane going the opposite direction. The proof was clear who was at fault. the family was asking for no more than to provide for their medical treatments which were going to be needed for life for two of them. But a jackass baptist preacher on the jury who had lied during voir dire by saying he could award damages if warranted brow-beat the rest of the jury into finding no fault. His reasoning? that accident was god's will, and they had no business interfering with god's will.
When the verdict was announced the judge blew a gasket. He told the jury they had reached a verdict contrary to the facts and the law, and he wasn't going to wait for a motion to set aside the verdict, instead he directed the plaintiff's lawyer to get him that motion so he could sign it.
Juries are a bunch of idiots, usually. I'll grant you that. Thats why its the defense that requests a jury more and more, not the plaintiff.