W. Mark Lanier

As chair of the plaintiffs' negotiating committee and Liaison Counsel in the Vioxx multidistrict litigation, Russ Herman directed the negotiations that produced a $4.85 billion settlement with Merck resolving approximately 45,000 to 50,000 personal-injury claims.

A St. Louis jury in July 2018 awarded 22 women and their families $4.69 billion, the largest U.S. verdict of that year, finding that asbestos in Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer; a Missouri appellate court upheld $2.11 billion in 2020.

After a six-week federal trial, a jury found three of the nation's largest retail pharmacy chains created a public nuisance by flooding Lake and Trumbull Counties, Ohio with opioid pills, and a judge ordered $650 million to fund a 15-year abatement plan.

A Dallas federal jury awarded $1.04 billion to six California patients harmed by Johnson and Johnson's metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants, with W. Mark Lanier leading an eight-week trial that produced one of the largest product-liability verdicts of 2016.

Hours before opening arguments in the first federal opioid bellwether trial, Cuyahoga and Summit counties in Ohio secured a $260 million settlement from distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, plus manufacturer Teva.

A Dallas federal jury awarded six New York patients $247 million against Johnson and Johnson and its DePuy unit, finding that the metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implant system was defectively designed and that the company concealed known risks from patients and surgeons.

In early 2014, Biomet agreed to pay at least $56 million to settle about 1,000 federal lawsuits over its M2a 38 and M2a Magnum metal-on-metal hip implants, consolidated in the Northern District of Indiana. Qualifying patients who had the device revised received a base award of $200,000, adjusted by individual factors. Thomas Anapol was court-appointed Co-Lead Counsel with W. Mark Lanier and signed the agreement for the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee. The figure covers many unrelated plaintiffs, is a reported minimum rather than a final total, and is not itemized by person.

A Louisiana federal jury awarded Terrence Allen $9 billion in punitive damages against Takeda and Eli Lilly after finding they hid Actos's bladder cancer risk for years, with W. Mark Lanier serving as lead trial counsel in the first federal bellwether trial of the massive MDL.

A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google's YouTube negligent in designing platforms that harmed a young woman identified as K.G.M., who began watching YouTube at age 6 and joined Instagram at 9. On March 25, 2026, it awarded $3 million in compensatory damages, split 70 percent to Meta and 30 percent to YouTube, plus $3 million in punitive damages. It was the first bellwether trial in the coordinated California social media addiction cases.

Flatbed operator Charles Robison fell about 13 feet head first from an unevenly loaded trailer at his nonsubscribing trucking employer in 2007 and suffered a traumatic brain injury. A Lubbock jury found West Star Transportation negligent in 2012, and the court entered a judgment of $5,298,590.78 for Robison and his wife, Cherie, in January 2013. The Amarillo Court of Appeals affirmed it in full in 2015, and the Texas Supreme Court denied review in 2016.