Friedman Rubin

A King County jury awarded $857 million in December 2023 to seven people, five former students and two parent volunteers, who said they were sickened by PCBs leaking from light fixtures at the Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe, Washington. The verdict included $73 million in compensatory damages and $784 million in punitive damages against Monsanto and its successor Pharmacia. In April 2024 a King County judge cut the punitive award to $365 million under Missouri's statutory cap on punitive damages, reducing the total to $438 million. Monsanto appealed, and Bayer said in February 2026 that Monsanto had settled the remaining Sky Valley jury verdicts on confidential terms, so what was ultimately paid is not public.

A King County jury awarded $275 million to thirteen Sky Valley Education Center students and families who suffered neurological injuries from PCB-contaminated light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.

A King County jury awarded three Monroe, Washington teachers $185 million after finding that PCBs manufactured by Monsanto leached from fluorescent light ballasts at their school and caused permanent neurological injuries.

A Clark County jury awarded retired Air Force veteran Michael Washington and his wife Josephine $104 million after finding that propofol manufacturers Teva Parenteral Medicines and Baxter Healthcare knowingly supplied oversized anesthetic vials that clinics routinely reused, spreading hepatitis C to patients.

A King County jury awarded $100 million to four plaintiffs who suffered neurological, hormonal, and cancer-related illnesses after years of exposure to PCBs from defective fluorescent light fixtures at a Monroe, Washington school.

A King County jury awarded $72 million to two former Sky Valley Education Center students who developed chronic neurological injuries after years of PCB exposure from aging fluorescent light fixtures manufactured by Monsanto.

A federal jury in Seattle awarded $21.5 million, including $16.5 million in punitive damages, to an Illinois businessman struck in the head by an automatic sliding-glass door aboard Holland America's M/S Amsterdam in 2011. In January 2016 the judge vacated the verdict and ordered a new trial after his former assistant said he had deleted emails sought in discovery. Nothing stood, and in June 2016 the parties stipulated to dismiss the case with prejudice on terms that were not made public.

A Knott County jury found that Mine Safety Appliances Co. sold dust masks it knew were inadequate to protect underground coal miners, awarding coal miner James Couch $8 million after he developed black lung disease, in what was reported as the first coal-dust respirator case in the country to go to trial.

A 17-year-old girl was struck in a marked crosswalk near Olympic High School in Kitsap County, Washington, in December 2012. During the fourth week of trial in February 2017, Kitsap County and the driver settled her claims, and the county agreed to add a second streetlight. Her award totaled $5.1 million, and her 15-year-old brother, who witnessed the crash, received a separate $600,000 settlement.