Try this out:

<?php
$pods = new Pod('verdict_category');
$pods->findRecords('t.name',-1);
$verdicts = new Pod('verdicts');
while($pods->fetchRecord())
{
    $verdicts->findRecords('t.name',-1,'verdict_category.id='.$pods->get_field('id'));
    if($verdicts->getTotalRows())
    {
?>
<h2><?php echo $pods->get_field('name'); ?></h2>
<?php
        echo $verdicts->showTemplate('verdict_list');
    }
}

Follow my previous example, and go another level deeper:

<?php
$pods = new Pod('verdict_category');
$pods->findRecords('t.name',-1);
$verdict_subcats = new Pod('verdict_category');
$verdicts = new Pod('verdicts');
$verdict_array = array(); // do this to add further logic to not show category names unless there are verdicts
while($pods->fetchRecord())
{
    $verdict_subcats->findRecords('t.name',-1,'parent.id='.$pods->get_field('id'));
    if($verdict_subcats->getTotalRows())
    {
        while($verdict_subcats->fetchRecord())
        {
            $verdicts->findRecords('t.name',-1,'verdict_category.id='.$verdict_subcats->get_field('id'));
            if($verdicts->getTotalRows())
            {
                ob_start();
                echo $verdicts->showTemplate('verdict_list');
                if(!isset($verdict_array[$pods->get_field('name')]))
                {
                    $verdict_array[$pods->get_field('name')] = array();
                }
                $verdict_array[$pods->get_field('name')][$verdict_subcats->get_field('name')] = ob_get_clean();
            }
        }
    }
}
foreach($verdict_array as $category_name => $subcats)
{
?>
<h2><?php echo $category_name; ?></h2>
<?php
    foreach($subcats as $subcat_name => $verds)
    {
?>
<h3><?php echo $subcat_name; ?></h3>
<?php
        echo $verds;
    }
}

Thank you sir, that worked perfectly!

Question #2: How would i use this with your category package where child categories and their respective items would need to be displayed under parent category names ?

THANK YOU. I needed this and struggled with it for hours until I found this. thank you thank you thank you!

Alright - I have one slight mod request to the first code (the one without sub cats)

I want to be able to show/not show a category based on a boolean field "active" in the "verdict_category" pod.

I would like the code to work the same as it is now, except <?php if( $pods->get_field('active')==1 ) : ?> needs to wrap around the h2/html output.

When I try to put it before h2 and after the echo $verds I get an error.

Many thanks!