Robert Collier

On November 9, 2023, a Sarasota County jury awarded the Kowalski family more than $261 million against Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital: about $211.5 million in compensatory damages plus $50 million in punitive damages, in the case behind the Netflix documentary Take Care of Maya. None of that judgment stands today. The trial judge cut $47.5 million from the award in January 2024, and on October 29, 2025 Florida's Second District Court of Appeal reversed the judgment entirely, holding that the trial court misapplied the statutory immunity for good-faith child-abuse reporting, directing judgment for the hospital on several claims and ordering a new trial on the rest. In August 2026 the Florida Supreme Court declined to review that ruling, so the surviving claims head back to Sarasota County for a narrower retrial. AndersonGlenn tried the original case for the family, and this page documents the full arc, verdict and reversal alike.

William Coultas, the copilot who survived a 2008 helicopter crash that killed nine people on the Iron Complex fire in Northern California, sued General Electric over the engine's fuel control unit after suffering severe burns. A Multnomah County jury in Portland found GE 57 percent at fault on March 27, 2012 and awarded $42,000,000 to Coultas and his wife as part of a $70,455,000 verdict that also compensated the pilot's estate. Because Oregon makes defendants severally liable for their own share of fault, the couple's judgment was entered at $23,940,000. GE said it would appeal, and court records show the judgment was still on appeal in August 2013. A later federal opinion states the plaintiffs ultimately settled with all of the defendants.

In 2012, a federal jury in Portland found General Electric responsible for a defective helicopter engine component in the 2008 crash that killed veteran firefighting pilot Roark Schwanenberg during the Iron 44 wildfire response. The jury awarded his estate $28,455,000 and put 57 percent of the fault on GE. A related Massachusetts court opinion recites that Oregon's wrongful-death damages cap and the jury's fault allocation cut that award to $1,329,350, and that the reduced judgment was on appeal. Oregon lawmakers later cited this same case while pushing to raise the state's wrongful-death cap.