Burton Haigh

Two former Jackson County Courthouse employees sued U.S. Engineering Co. and Jackson County over asbestos dust that spread through the courthouse during a mid-1980s renovation, after a co-worker died of mesothelioma. A trial judge refused to certify a class, and in March 2015 the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and reinstated the case. A jury had been selected for an October 2016 trial in Jackson County Circuit Court when the parties settled for $80 million, funded by U.S. Engineering's insurers rather than county tax dollars. The settlement set aside $25 million for attorneys' fees and litigation costs and put the remainder into a medical monitoring fund covering diagnostic testing for up to 7,500 people who worked in or spent significant time in the courthouse. Louis C. Accurso represented the plaintiffs.

A Clay County, Missouri jury awarded $65 million to a child who suffered a permanent brain injury before birth when a UPS delivery truck struck his mother's car while she was 13 weeks pregnant. With prejudgment interest, the judgment came to roughly $75.3 million, and the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed it in May 2025.

Roger Ross was driving a farm tractor north on K-7 Highway in Doniphan County, Kansas in March 2014 when a Jeschke Ag Service tractor-trailer driven by Donald Shaw tried to pass in a no-passing zone as Ross began a left turn. The truck struck Ross's tractor mid-turn and threw him from it, causing a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull, a fractured pelvis, and a cerebral hemorrhage that left him with permanent memory loss. A Jackson County, Missouri jury assessed Jeschke 65 percent at fault and Ross 35 percent at fault, and awarded $3.9 million in economic damages and $2.4 million in non-economic damages. After Kansas's cap on non-economic damages and Ross's share of fault were applied, and punitive damages were added, the court entered judgment for $3,535,000, which the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed in full in 2018.