David Mazie

An Essex County jury awarded $165.97 million against the State of New Jersey and its Division of Youth and Family Services for failing to remove an infant from his home despite his grandmother's abuse report, a verdict reported as the largest in state personal injury history. The trial judge cut it to $102.6 million on remittitur, and in April 2017 the Appellate Division reversed the judgment entirely on qualified immunity grounds under the Tort Claims Act. The family collected nothing from the State.

A 43-year-old utility pole that Verizon had been told to remove in 1999 snapped and fell on attorney Maria Moser Meister at a Union City bus stop in 2017, leaving her with a severe brain injury and paralysis. In May 2020 a New Jersey judge approved a $125 million settlement, reported as the largest personal injury settlement in state history.

A Bergen County jury ordered stadium concessionaire Aramark and drunk driver Daniel Lanzaro to pay roughly $135 million after Lanzaro, served beer at Giants Stadium despite visible intoxication, crashed into the Verni family's car and left their two-year-old daughter paralyzed from the neck down. The verdict was reversed on appeal in 2006, and the case settled in 2008 for $25 million in cash and annuities.

A boy born at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in 1998 developed cerebral palsy after doctors waited too long to perform a cesarean section despite clear signs of fetal distress. In April 2010, an Essex County jury awarded $18.5 million, and the family recovered $16.75 million under a high-low agreement reached during deliberations.