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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Michael Collins Smith
Michael Collins Smith is a civil litigator and head of Balick & Balick's asbestos practice. A Delaware native, Michael is experienced in personal injury and toxic torts at both the trial and appellate levels, and he also supports the firm's health law practice. The Balick & Balick asbestos practice, working with co-counsel, has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and jury verdicts on behalf of victims of asbestos exposure and disease. Michael was part of a trial team that won a $40 million verdict for a career mechanic from New Mexico who developed mesothelioma after exposure to asbestos, the largest individual asbestos verdict in Delaware history.
Before joining Balick & Balick, Michael practiced insurance law with a major Northeastern firm, helping secure millions of dollars in insurance coverage for a broad range of policyholder clients, including some of the nation's largest corporations and industrial concerns. Michael graduated with high distinction from Seton Hall University School of Law and, before that, the University of Delaware. His honors at Seton Hall include the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in Intellectual Property Law, and he served as Business Editor of the Seton Hall Law Review and president of the school's Arts Law Society.
Proven verdicts and settlements
Larry Knecht, a lifelong auto mechanic in Los Alamos, New Mexico, developed mesothelioma from working with Ford's asbestos-containing brakes and clutches and died in December 2014, more than three years before his case reached trial. His widow, Paula Knecht, tried the failure-to-warn claim to a Delaware jury in 2018 against Ford, the only defendant left of the eighteen originally sued. The jury set total compensatory damages at $40,625,000, assigned Ford 20 percent of the fault among twenty compared parties, and added $1,000,000 in punitive damages, putting Ford's total liability at $9,125,000. Ford's appeal reached the Delaware Supreme Court, which sent the case back on a legal technicality about how to measure an excessive verdict, but the trial judge again found the underlying figure sound and the number held. Final judgment of $9,125,000 plus interest was entered in November 2020, and Ford dropped its remaining appeal three months later.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.