National Trial Law

In February 2022, a federal judge ordered the United States to pay $230 million to survivors and families of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting after finding the Air Force 60 percent liable for failing to report the gunman's criminal history to the federal background check system.

Michael Farley, a Navy veteran, was left permanently conscious but nearly paralyzed after the Manchester VA failed to properly evaluate and treat his first stroke, allowing a second, massive stroke to occur six weeks later.

William Whitehurst won a $44.7 million judgment against the United States after doctors at Sheppard Air Force Base Hospital made delivery decisions that destroyed 65 to 70 percent of an infant boy's brain tissue; because FTCA claims are tried to the court, a judge entered the award, and the Fifth Circuit later capped recovery at $20 million under the FTCA administrative-claim limit.

After a bench trial in November 2007, a federal court found that a Navy clinic physician in Millington, Tennessee, breached the standard of care by not recommending prenatal vitamins to a patient planning a pregnancy, and held that the lapse caused her daughter's spina bifida. The court entered a $13,690,648.17 judgment on March 31, 2008. The government appealed, and the judgment was set aside on October 9, 2008, when the parties' compromise settlement and a trust for the child were approved.

A combat veteran developed end-stage renal disease after VA physicians at Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital prescribed Naproxen for three consecutive years, ignoring repeated warnings in his own medical records that NSAIDs would damage his kidneys; the case settled for $10.5 million, the largest FTCA settlement in Missouri history.

A retired Marine had spinal surgery at the Little Rock VA hospital in October 2018 and suffered a permanent brain injury after a surgeon left a drain near a dural tear without confirming the repair was sealed. After a bench trial under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Judge Lee P. Rudofsky entered a $3,122,538.09 judgment for Craig and Eileen Dobbs. On reconsideration it was amended to $2,972,658.09, which is what the court's final judgment stood at.