Francis Schafer

A Lake County jury awarded Kristen Zak $32.5 million after a J.B. Hunt Transport semi-truck jackknifed in the median of Interstate 65 during a snowstorm and was left without warning triangles, and the car she was riding in struck the wreck about an hour later, leaving her with permanent brain damage.

On the morning of March 11, 2001, three brothers went through the ice on Lake Holiday inside the Lakes of the Four Seasons, a gated condominium community in Crown Point, Indiana. One 11-year-old drowned, his 10-year-old brother was pulled out with a traumatic brain injury, and the third boy, the drowned child's twin, was rescued by a diver. At trial in February 2011 the family's lawyers showed that an overflow crib circulating water beneath the surface had thinned the ice at that spot while staying invisible from shore, and that the property owners association had posted no warning sign, put up no barrier and kept no rescue equipment at the lake. A Lake Circuit Court jury assigned all of the fault to the association and awarded $30.7 million, itemized as $25.5 million for the brain injury, $5 million for the death and $200,000 for the surviving twin. A news report at the time said an appeal was expected, and no published Indiana appellate decision in the case has since turned up.

Daniel Nelson, a farmer from Lake Village, Indiana, was driving his tractor north on U.S. 41 in Newton County on the morning of May 16, 2019, when a semitrailer that failed to slow down or change lanes struck it and threw him from the seat. He suffered head and brain injuries, a fractured pelvis and five broken ribs. Nelson and his wife, Diana, sued the trucking company, its customer and the driver, and after the case bounced between federal and state court on jurisdictional grounds, it was tried over seven days in Newton County Superior Court. On February 16, 2022, the jury deliberated about two and a half hours before awarding $25 million to Daniel Nelson and $5 million to Diana Nelson, a $30 million verdict that stood.

A tractor-trailer going about 50 mph rear-ended the Whiting family's car at a red light, leaving Harold Whiting with permanent brain damage and a spinal cord injury. The defendants conceded negligence, and a federal jury in Hammond awarded Harold $6 million, his wife Leatrice $1.22 million for loss of consortium and their daughter $80,000. The Seventh Circuit later affirmed the denial of a new trial.

A Porter County jury awarded Courtney Faulhaber $4.1 million after a B&W Cartage Company semi-truck ran a red light on U.S. 6 in June 2020 and struck her car. The company did not dispute that its driver caused the crash, so the trial turned entirely on how badly Faulhaber was hurt. The defense argued her head injury was a temporary concussive event and pointed to how little treatment her medical records showed, while her lawyers argued the collision left her with a lasting brain injury. The jury found for Faulhaber and awarded her $4.1 million, and it rejected a companion loss of consortium claim brought by her husband.