Montgomery County Jury Awards $124.26 Million to Estate of Woman Killed by Her Husband

Ellen Gregory Robb, 49, was beaten to death with an exercise bar in the couple's Upper Merion home on December 22, 2006, a few days before Christmas. Her husband, Rafael Robb, then an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, first described the killing as a robbery. He later admitted it, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2007 and was sentenced to five to ten years in prison. Ellen had hired a divorce lawyer and was preparing to leave the marriage when she died.

The estate's wrongful death and survival case went to trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County in Norristown, nearly eight years later. The plaintiff was the estate, with the couple's daughter, then 20, as its beneficiary. Robert Mongeluzzi of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky tried the case with co-counsel Andrew Duffy. Robb appeared through a lawyer, Eric Levin. The criminal plea settled that he had caused the death, so the jury's work was to decide what the loss was worth and whether the conduct warranted punishment.

Testimony ran about three days. The estate argued that the killing was premeditated and not a crime of passion, a theory the defense disputed. On November 5, 2014, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of $124.26 million. Of that, $100 million was punitive damages. The remaining roughly $24 million compensated the family for its loss and for Ellen's pain and suffering. Reporters described it as the largest contested personal injury verdict in Pennsylvania history.

Mongeluzzi told reporters the verdict recognized the horror and depravity of the crime and the kind of person Ellen was. Ellen's brother, Gary Gregory, said the result would free her daughter from financial and personal ties to her father.

Robb challenged the award after trial. In December 2014 his lawyer asked Judge Thomas DelRicci to cut the punitive portion, arguing that autopsy and crime scene photographs had prejudiced the jury and that the court should have declared a mistrial after the daughter was escorted out by onlookers following her testimony. Mongeluzzi argued the award served as a deterrent, and Duffy called the motion a last, desperate attempt by a murderer to hold on to his money and keep control over his daughter. The judge said he would rule in writing. None of the sources reviewed reports any reduction of the verdict.

Collecting was a separate fight. In January 2016 the court barred Robb from reclaiming his pension and retirement accounts, applying Pennsylvania's Slayer's Act, so those funds stayed with the estate. In August 2019 Robb, by then released from prison, settled by giving up 75 percent of his pension and investment assets, an arrangement that resolved the judgment.