The case around the estate of a deceased airline entrepreneur - who died without leaving a will - involves a jury award that JP Morgan has now challenged.

JP Morgan has urged a judge to reject an $8 billion jury verdict over a mismanaged inheritance case, arguing that the family did not deserve the money, media reports said. 

“The law and evidence do not support any claim against JPMorgan, much less the unprecedented multi-billion-dollar punitive damage award, which the heirs have already admitted is unconstitutionally excessive,” the bank said in a filing in Dallas probate court (source: Bloomberg).

Two children of Max Hopper, a former American Airlines executive who died in 2010, have already asked that the damages for them and their father’s estate be cut to about $74 million. His widow has not yet made moves on any change to one of the largest verdicts of its kind in US legal history, the news service said.

JP Morgan reportedly said the jury “accepted to the penny, the extraordinary invitation” of the family’s legal team to award the $8 billion without doing any “independent analysis”. 

Hopper died with assets of more than $19 million but without a will, according to court records, the report said.

The US bank was appointed to administer the estate and the bank should have divided the assets and released them to [widow] Jo Hopper and her stepchildren, according to the lawsuit. Instead, her lawyers said in a statement, as reported by the newswire, that “the bank took years to release basic interests in art, home furnishings, jewelry, and notably, Mr Hopper’s collection of 6,700 golf putters and 900 bottles of wine. Some of the interests in the assets were not released for more than five years.’’

The plaintiffs alleged that bank representatives failed to meet financial deadlines for assets under their control, stock options were allowed to expire, and Mrs Hopper’s wishes to sell stock were ignored. 

In September, a probate court jury awarded punitive damage awards of $2 billion each to Jo Hopper, the Hopper estate, Stephen Hopper and Laura Wassmer.

JP Morgan denied any wrongdoing, saying it acted in good faith on the Hopper estate.

The case is In re: Estate of Max D. Hopper v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, PR-11-3238-1, Probate Court, Dallas County.