$101 Million Bad-Faith Verdict Against Progressive After Crosswalk TBI
Won by Bighorn Law.
A Clark County jury awarded $101 million against Progressive, $1 million compensatory and $100 million punitive, after the insurer delayed paying Hal Goldblatt's medical bills for months following a 2022 crosswalk collision that caused a traumatic brain injury.
What happened
In 2022, Hal Goldblatt was struck by a vehicle while crossing a street in a marked crosswalk in the Las Vegas area. The impact left him with severe fractures throughout his body and a traumatic brain injury serious enough to require ICU care and an extended hospital stay. Once discharged, he needed ongoing at-home treatment that he and his wife Shawn could not afford without taking out loans.
The driver, Lamonte Cunningham, was insured by Progressive. In a first phase of trial, a Clark County jury found Cunningham liable and set compensatory damages at roughly $7 million. The second phase, a bad-faith claim against Progressive directly, turned on how the insurer handled the Goldblatts' requests for reimbursement in the months after the crash.
Attorney Kimball Jones of Bighorn Law argued that Progressive slow-rolled the claim for five to seven months because the Goldblatts initially submitted their payment request on a plain letter rather than attorney letterhead. Progressive used that procedural point to delay action, Jones told the jury, even as the couple fell deeper into debt. The insurer ultimately paid but only after the family had borrowed money to cover Hal's care costs. Progressive rejected a $1.9 million settlement demand from Jones and never made a single counteroffer.
Jones also put Progressive's financial scale before the jury. The insurer reported annual revenue of roughly $62 billion. Some jurors floated a punitive figure equal to 1 percent of that revenue, around $620 million. Others proposed $10 million. They settled on $100 million.
On August 9, 2024, Judge Jacqueline Bluth entered the verdict: $1 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages, totaling $101 million. CVN, which covered the trial, ranked it among the ten most impressive plaintiff verdicts of 2024. Jones was joined on the case by Bighorn Law partner Jacqueline Bretell, who had referred the matter.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Courtroom View Network: $100M punitive bad faith verdict against Progressive beats $1.9M settlement offer (Aug. 2024)·Archived copy
- 2.CVN: Editorial 'Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2024' (entry #8, editorially selected)·Archived copy
- 3.Vegas Legal Magazine: bylined profile article (Mark Fierro) confirming verdict details and co-counsel·Archived copy
- 4.CVN: Official trial docket page, Hal Goldblatt v. Lamonte Cunningham, trial Aug. 1-9 2024·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Bighorn Law
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