$557 Million Verdict Against Union Pacific After a Houston Train Strike
After trial: The trial court entered judgment at about $73.5 million under Texas proportionate responsibility rules; in June 2026 an appeals court reversed and sent the case back for a new trial.
Won by Arnold & Itkin.
A Harris County jury awarded Mary Johnson $557 million against Union Pacific for a 2016 Houston train strike that cost her a leg, several fingers, and left her with a brain injury, a figure the trial court later cut and an appeals court reversed for a new trial.
What happened
Early on March 5, 2016, Mary Johnson was on Union Pacific tracks in downtown Houston when a train came toward her in the dark. The crew did not bring the train to a stop before it reached her. Arnold & Itkin, representing Johnson, argued that the locomotive's lights were not bright enough to show a person on the tracks 800 feet ahead, the distance federal rules require, and that the operators waited until the train was within roughly 50 feet of her before hitting the emergency brakes.
Johnson's injuries were severe and permanent. She lost a leg and several fingers, and she sustained a traumatic brain injury that left her needing ongoing medical care. She sued Union Pacific in Harris County, and the case was heard in the 129th District Court before Judge Michael Gomez.
Kyle Findley led the trial team, joined by John Grinnan and other lawyers from the firm. They told the jury that the engineer could have stopped in time if the train had carried the illumination the regulation called for, and that the crew failed to choose the safe course when it was unclear whether Johnson would move off the tracks. Union Pacific countered that the crossing's lights, gates, and bells were working, that the crew sounded the horn, and that a train can take up to a mile to stop. The railroad also pointed to evidence that Johnson had been intoxicated.
On March 3, 2023, the jury found Union Pacific 80% responsible and Johnson 20% responsible. It awarded $57 million in compensatory damages and $500 million in exemplary damages, $557 million in all. The Texas Lawbook ranked it the third largest Texas verdict of that year.
The jury's number did not survive intact. Texas law caps exemplary damages and lowers awards by a plaintiff's share of responsibility, so the trial court entered judgment for about $73.5 million. Union Pacific appealed.
On June 16, 2026, the Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas reversed that judgment and ordered a new trial. The panel held that the trial court instructed jurors under an ordinary negligence standard when Johnson's status as a trespasser on the tracks required proof of gross negligence. The appellate opinion noted that Johnson had a blood alcohol level of 0.197 and had fallen asleep on the tracks before the train reached her. The case is headed back for retrial.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Arnold & Itkin
All Arnold & Itkin proven verdicts →A Cobb County, Georgia jury found that Monsanto's Roundup caused John Barnes's non-Hodgkin lymphoma and awarded him $2.065 billion, with Arnold & Itkin's Kyle Findley serving as lead trial lawyer.
Jose Valdivia, 25, was building scaffolding at the Phillips 66 refinery in Lake Charles when a co-worker above him lost his grip on a steel scaffold bar. It struck him on the head and spine through a hard hat and full protective equipment. He is in a wheelchair with limited speech. Brock never reported the accident to OSHA.
A Dallas County jury found developer Greystar liable for the 2019 tower crane collapse that killed 29-year-old Kiersten Smith in her apartment, returning an $860 million verdict that Jason and Cory Itkin helped win for her family. The trial court cut the $500 million exemplary award under the Texas statutory cap before signing judgment in August 2023, entering $360,012,006 in compensatory damages jointly and severally against the three Greystar entities plus prejudgment interest, and Greystar's appeal, argued in February 2026, is undecided.
A Fort Bend County jury awarded $222 million to the widow of Jesse Henson, a power-plant repairman scalded to death by superheated steam from a relief valve serviced by Team Industrial Services, a judgment a Texas appeals court later reversed before dismissing the case on the ground that it belonged in Kansas.
Related car accident verdicts
On December 7, 2021, a Nueces County jury in Corpus Christi returned $1.04 billion in actual damages and $300 billion in exemplary damages, about $301.04 billion in total, against Beer Belly's Sports Bar and its owner for overserving a driver who killed Tamra Kay Kindred, 59, and her 16-year-old granddaughter in a 2017 crash. It was reported as the largest jury verdict ever recorded, and it was built to be symbolic: the bar had closed in 2019, Texas does not require bars to carry liquor liability insurance, and the family and its lawyers said openly that they expected to recover nothing and sought the number as a public statement against drunk driving. John Flood of Flood Trial Lawyers was lead counsel, with Sico, Hoelscher & Harris LLP as co-counsel; Craig Sico delivered the closing argument that asked jurors to decide how loudly their voice would be heard.
An Oakland County jury awarded $896.5 million to a young boy who was struck by a prototype test car during a student field trip at a Continental test track, reported as the largest verdict in Michigan history. The award is pre-appeal: post-trial motions are pending, Continental never made a settlement offer, and the amount could still be reduced.
A Bexar County jury awarded roughly $831 million to Blas Mendez Jr., a longtime Seguin ISD special education behavior specialist left partially paralyzed after his motorcycle hit wreckage left in the road by an 18-year-old drunk driver who had been served at Koozies Icehouse & Grill in New Braunfels. Todd A. Hunter of Hunter Trial Law tried the dram shop case with E. Chevo Pastrano and Ginna G. Pastrano of The Pastrano Law Firm. The award was reported as the largest verdict ever returned by a San Antonio jury, and the bar had already closed by the time it came in, so the family is not expected to collect most, if any, of it.