About J. Kent Emison
Kent Emison has dedicated nearly 40 years to representing individuals and their family members in personal injury cases. He devotes his practice entirely to litigation in product liability, motor vehicle accidents, and other cases involving personal injury and wrongful death, and has served as lead trial counsel in numerous multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements across the United States. Best Lawyers in America has named Kent 'Lawyer of the Year' several times for personal injury plaintiffs' litigation in the Kansas City metro area. In 2017 he received the Thomas G. Strong Trial Attorney Award from the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys.
He has also been honored by Missouri Lawyers Weekly as 'Lawyer of the Year' and was selected among the top 100 lawyers in Missouri and Kansas by Super Lawyers for three consecutive years. Kent served as President of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys from 2005 to 2006 and has held leadership roles with the American Association for Justice and the Attorneys Information Exchange Group. He graduated with distinction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, where he served as Business Editor of the Law Review.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Baltimore jury returned a $59.7 million verdict against Toyota after a passenger riding with his seat fully reclined slid beneath his seatbelt in a head-on collision, losing both legs above the knee -- a result the court later reduced to $16 million, which Maryland's appellate court upheld in 2003.
A Jackson County jury held Ford Motor Company liable for a defective fuel tank design after three members of a Missouri family burned to death when their F-150 pickup ruptured and ignited during a 1999 highway collision.
A 1993 federal jury awarded $11.3 million to the sons of Beverly Garner, a passenger killed when a defective fuel pump ignited an engine fire in her 1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, a verdict whose admissibility fight over a former GM insider's testimony traveled all the way to a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the plaintiffs' favor.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
