Michael Haggard
Proven VerdictsSimilar personal injury attorneys in Coral Gables
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Michael Haggard
Michael Haggard is the Managing Partner of The Haggard Law Firm and one of the most recognized personal injury trial lawyers in the country. He concentrates on pool drowning, negligent security, wrongful death, unsafe premises, and product liability cases. After starting his career as an Assistant Public Defender in Miami-Dade County, he joined the firm and was named a partner in 2001.
He captured national attention as the only plaintiff's personal injury attorney to win three separate 100 million dollar verdicts for individual clients: two consecutive verdicts above 100 million dollars for children injured in pool drain cases, and a third, of 102.7 million dollars, in a negligent security case considered the largest of its kind. In 2017 he received the Florida Justice Association's highest honor, the Perry Nichols Award, and he has been named Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers in America. He served as president of the National Crime Victim Bar Association in 2018 and of the Florida Justice Association from 2009 to 2010, sits on the Advisory Council of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, and serves on the national board of the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation, a cause personal to him and his family.
Proven verdicts and settlements
An Orange County jury awarded $310 million to the parents of Tyre Sampson, the 14-year-old who fell to his death from the Orlando FreeFall drop tower at ICON Park in 2022, in a case tried by Kimberly Wald and Michael Haggard against ride manufacturer Funtime Handels GmbH, which sent no lawyer or representative to the trial, leaving collection of the judgment from the absent Austrian company uncertain.
A Miami-Dade jury awarded $104.4 million against pool pump manufacturer Sta-Rite Industries for a 14-year-old boy left with catastrophic brain damage after pool drain suction held him underwater for about twelve minutes, a verdict won by Michael Haggard, Andrew Haggard, and Robert Parks in 2003 but reversed on appeal the following year, and the case never produced a second public verdict.
A Miami-Dade jury awarded $102.7 million against shopping center owner Report Investment Corporation for the shooting that left Sami Barrak a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic in the parking lot outside Tootsie's Cabaret, a negligent security verdict tried by Michael Haggard that settled about a week later for the $26 million in total available insurance limits.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.