Timothy Schafer II

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 Tippecanoe County jury found in February 2016 that Brittany Johnson had $7.1 million in damages from a 2008 crash on Interstate 65 that killed her fiance and left her with a traumatic brain injury. It assigned 30 percent of the fault to Sandberg Trucking and its driver, Kimiel Horn, which produced a $2.13 million judgment. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed in 2017.

A 66-year-old South Bend woman was sent home from The South Bend Clinic with an inner ear diagnosis and had a disabling stroke two days later. A St. Joseph County jury found the doctor and clinic liable and returned $1.75 million in March 2010. The trial court entered judgment at the $1.25 million statutory cap for medical malpractice, and the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed.