About Jeffrey Harris
Jeffrey R. Harris is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and one of the firm's founding partners. Over the course of his career he has secured hundreds of millions in verdicts and settlements, handling high-profile cases in product liability, wrongful death, catastrophic personal injury, medical malpractice, and business torts. His notable automotive defect victories include a $40 million verdict against Ford for a false-park transmission defect, a $47.7 million verdict for a 6-year-old paralyzed by a Lincoln LS design defect, and $16.52 million against Michelin for tread-separation causing a client's death.
He secured a $9.85 million verdict for the drowning death of a two-year-old at an unlicensed daycare, and an $18 million verdict in Chatham County for a client paralyzed by negligent medical care. Harris served as lead counsel in Jones v. CSX ($11.2 million verdict for the family of camera operator Sarah Jones killed on the set of the Midnight Rider film) and in Bernecker v. AMC ($8.6 million for stunt performer John Bernecker killed on the set of The Walking Dead). He is a magna cum laude graduate of Mercer Law School, where he graduated first in his class and served as Editor in Chief of the Mercer Law Review.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Fulton County jury awarded $47.7 million after a defective rear seat latch in a 2000 Lincoln LS collapsed during a crash, severing a six-year-old girl's thoracic spinal cord and leaving her paralyzed.
A DeKalb County jury awarded $40 million to Jessica Mundy and her husband after her 2004 Ford Explorer spontaneously shifted from park into reverse, striking and running over her, after the trial team showed Ford had known about the 'false park' transmission defect for decades.
A Fulton County jury awarded $35 million to the family of Joshua Chang, a 21-year-old Yale student killed when his car struck a concrete planter on the shoulder of Batesville Road, finding the City of Milton 93% responsible for leaving a dangerous obstacle in the right-of-way.
A Chatham County jury awarded $18 million, the largest personal injury verdict in county history, after an infectious disease specialist failed to diagnose and treat a spinal epidural abscess, leaving Joan Simmons permanently paraplegic.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded $8.6 million to the mother of stuntman John Bernecker, who died in July 2017 after falling 22 feet from a balcony on a 'Walking Dead' set when he missed his landing pad by inches; the Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed the verdict on the ground that the Workers' Compensation Act barred the family's civil claims.
A box-truck driver crossed a double yellow line to pass a tractor on Georgia Highway 44 in November 2020, setting off a chain-reaction crash that left an 81-year-old driver with a fractured spine, sternum and arm and 45 days in the hospital. A federal jury in Macon returned a verdict of $26,895,400 against the driver and his employer. The court cut the punitive award to Georgia's $250,000 cap, applied the plaintiff's 10 percent share of fault and added prejudgment interest, entering judgment of $7,208,970.
A Chatham County State Court jury in Savannah found in July 2017 that CSX Transportation shared the blame for the death of 27-year-old camera assistant Sarah Jones on the first day of filming Midnight Rider. Jurors valued her life and suffering at $11.2 million and assigned CSX 35% of the fault, a share of about $3.92 million. CSX was the only defendant tried, because every other defendant had already resolved the case. After the judge denied a new trial and CSX appealed, the judgment was satisfied in January 2019 under a confidential settlement.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
