A few observations from a brief review of the verdict form.

1. Of the 39 allegedly false and misleading statements, the jury found for the plaintiffs on 16 of those statements.

2. Of those 16 statements, the jury found that all four defendants acted recklessly with respect to 15 of those statements.

3. On one of the statements, two defendants (Household and former Chairman and CEO William Aldinger) were found to have acted knowingly, one defendant (Gary Gilmer, the former Vice-Chair of Consumer Lending) was found to have acted recklessly, and one defendant (David Schoenholz, the former CFO, COO, and vice-chairman of the Board) was found not liable with respect to that statement.

4. The percentage of responsibility that the jury attributed to each defendant is as follows:

Household - 55%
Aldinger - 20%
Schoenholz - 15%
Gilmer - 10%

5. The verdict form attributes an inflation factor to each day of the class period. From 7/3/99 - 3/22/01, the jury found that there was no inflation of Household's share price attributable to the alleged misstatements and omissions.

6. But from 3/23/01 - 10/11/02, the jury found that the alleged misstatements and omissions inflated Household's share price between $23.94 and -$4.66. It seems that with the negative inflation number the jury is indicating that on a few days during the class period, the defendants actually caused the share price to go down. It is unclear whether the plaintiffs will amend their complaint to add a subclass of common stock sellers that were harmed by this deflation!

7. Last, but not least, the jury found that defendant Gilmer had no control person liability under Section 20(a).

A copy of the jury verdict is available here.