McMath Woods

A Pulaski County circuit judge entered a $17.6 million default judgment against a former Little Rock 911 dispatcher who failed to relay a drowning-in-progress call to police and fire water rescue, resulting in the deaths of a mother and her young son over the following two years.

A federal jury held maintenance contractor Shaw Group liable under Arkansas law after U.S. Army Private Van Ryan Marcum was fatally electrocuted by an abandoned, improperly wired latrine at Fort Benning, returning a $6.5 million verdict affirmed by the Eighth Circuit.

An oiler paralyzed below the neck after a fuel-supply pontoon vessel capsized in dangerous lock-gate currents on the Arkansas River near Pine Bluff received a $1 million jury award in 1969, reported at the time as the first such verdict in Arkansas federal courts.

Donna Kudabeck slipped on a recently mopped aisle at a Kroger grocery store in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in April 1995 and fell on the base of her spine. A federal jury found Kroger negligent after a one-day trial and awarded her $260,961.67. The district court entered judgment for $255,382.67 in May 2002 after crediting medical bills Kroger had already paid, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed on August 4, 2003.