About Brent Goudarzi
Brent Goudarzi is the founding partner of Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P. in Gilmer, Upshur County, Texas. He holds what the firm describes as the six most consequential settlements and verdicts in transportation litigation history: verdicts of $730 million, $260 million, and $101 million, and paid settlements of $150 million, $140 million, and $125 million. In 2022 alone his office secured over $512 million in settlements for individual tort victims, and The National Trial Lawyers named him Civil Plaintiff Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2022. He served as the 2024 President of the National Trial Lawyers Association, an organization of more than 60,000 trial lawyers. Mr. Goudarzi received his B.A. (1993) and J.D. (1996) from Texas Tech University.
He is a past president of the East Texas Trial Lawyers Association (2011-2017) and now serves on its board as Director Emeritus, and he sits on the national advisory board of the Association of Plaintiff Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America. His practice is devoted to representing victims in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, including commercial trucking and auto negligence, products liability, workplace injury, and premises liability. His firm has represented over 28,000 people, and he has secured record jury verdicts in Upshur, Gregg, Harrison, Dallas, Hopkins, Marion, Harris, Camp, Titus, and Smith Counties. He is admitted to practice in all state courts of Texas and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Northern Districts of Texas.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Titus County jury awarded $730 million to the family of Toni Combest, a 73-year-old great-grandmother killed when a Landstar Ranger truck hauling a 197,000-pound Navy submarine propeller struck her car on a narrow Highway 271 bridge, though the family's actual recovery came from pretrial settlements: $50 million from Landstar Ranger and $1 million from escort company S&M Pilot Service, with the verdict itself returned against the small front-escort company 2A Pilot Cars.
On February 13, 2016, 21-year-old Riley McPherson was killed on U.S. 271 near Gilmer, Texas, when his van struck the side of a Jefferson Trucking flatbed tractor-trailer that was blocking all four lanes of the highway while its driver, on hour 17 of a run home from Ohio, tried to back it into a private driveway. McPherson's parents, Eddie McPherson and Karen Pearson, sued Jefferson Trucking, driver Eric Wayne Jefferson, and Timothy Wayne Jefferson in the 115th District Court of Upshur County. On November 8, 2018, a jury apportioned 65 percent fault to Eric Jefferson, 20 percent to Jefferson Trucking, 10 percent to Timothy Jefferson, and 5 percent to McPherson, and set damages at $260 million, which the comparative-fault finding reduced to $247 million. The defendants appealed, then voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, leaving the trial court judgment intact.
Before dawn on May 24, 2020, a Werner Enterprises tractor-trailer struck the rear of a passenger car stopped in a live lane of Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, Texas, with two children, ages 7 and 9, inside. The car caught fire and both children died. Their parents sued Werner and its driver, alleging negligent and grossly negligent operation of the tractor-trailer, negligent hiring, training, and supervision of the driver, and negligent entrustment of the truck. In July 2022, Werner announced it had agreed to pay $150 million to resolve the case without a trial, funded by the company and its insurance carriers. Goudarzi & Young, through founding partner Brent Goudarzi, represented the family.
A 39-year-old man was left quadriplegic in 2017 when an 18-wheeler struck his vehicle on Highway 259 near Ore City in Upshur County, Texas. The case went to trial, where evidence showed the truck's driver, Dijuana Smith, had been involved in multiple crashes before the wreck, and where attorneys said she had violated state and federal trucking regulations. Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P., of Gilmer, Texas, represented the injured man, and the parties reached a $140 million settlement in July 2019. The firm, and later a Lawdragon profile of managing partner Brent Goudarzi, both described it as the largest settlement for a single plaintiff in American legal history. The identities of the plaintiff and the trucking company were not publicly disclosed.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
